BY 

ARTHUR    G.   BENSON 

FELLOW    OF   MAGDALENE   COLLEGE 
CAMBRIDGE 

THE  UPTON    LETTERS 

FROM   A  COLLEGE 
WINDOW 

BESIDE  STILL  WATERS 

THE  ALTAR  FIRE 

THE    SCHOOLMASTER 

AT  LARGE 


THE 
SCHOOLMASTER 


A  COMMENTARY  UPON  THE  AIMS  AND 

METHODS   OF    AN    ASSISTANT-MASTER 

IN  A  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 


By  ARTHUR  CHRISTOPHER  BENSON 

AUTHOR    OF     "  THE    UPTON    LETTERS,"     "  FROM    A    COLLEGE 
WINDOW,"  ETC. 


*'  Le  travail,  il  n'y  a  que  9a  !  " 
With  an  Introduction  *d  ]hk  American  Edition 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

tTbe  fcnlcKerbocl^er  press 

1908 


Ube  mnfcfterbocfter  press,  flew  HJorft 


OMNIBUS  .  ADIUTORIBUS 


333853 


PREFACE 

THE  following  pages  do  not  profess 
to  be  a  scientific  educational  treatise  ; 
they  merely  aim  at  considering  the  life  of 
the  schoolmaster  from  within.  It  seems  a 
pity  that  one  who  has  exercised  the  pro- 
fession of  a  schoolmaster  for  a  good  many 
years  should  make  no  attempt  to  gather 
up  and  record  experience;  it  is  useful 
simply  to  compare  impressions;  and 
though  the  following  is  merely  a  personal 
view,  and  lays  claim  to  no  sort  of  scientific 
or  philosophical  treatment,  yet  it  may  be 
of  interest  to  other  teachers,  and  may 
even  be  of  use  to  those  who  have  not  yet 
begun  their  professional  life,  but  are 
looking  forward  to  joining  the  ranks  of 
the  profession. 

The  schoolmaster  is  perhaps  not  so 
much  criticised  at  present  as  he  ought 
to  be;  or  such  criticism   is  of  a  secret 

ill 


IV 


Preface 


character.  The  public  schools  of  England 
just  now  enjoy  a  considerable  popularity, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  in  the  country;  but 
what  is  still  needed  is  that  school- 
masters should  have  a  more  definite  aim, 
a  theory  of  their  art,  and  it  seems  a  pity 
that  so  many  of  us  schoolmasters  do  our 
work  in  so  fortuitous  a  way.  I  therefore 
venture  to  gather  up  the  fruits  of  my 
experience,  and  to  try  to  uphold,  not 
boldly  but  sedately,  the  dignity  of  the 
profession  to  which  I  have  given  my 
best  years. 


CONTENTS 


I. 

Introductory 

. 

II. 

Training  of   T 

eachers 

III. 

Discipline 

IV. 

Teaching 

V. 

Work 

VI. 

Intellect 

VII. 

Originality 

VIII. 

Praise 

IX. 

The  Boarding- 

House 

X. 

Athletics 

XL 

Time 

XII. 

Holidays 

XIII. 

Sociability 

XIV. 

Religion  . 

XV. 

Moralities 

XVI. 

Devotion 

PAGE 

I 

13 

22 
32 

43 

54 

65 

74 

79 

93 

105 

112 

118 

124 

142 

157 


INTRODUCTION 

1HAVE  been  asked  to  introduce  this 
little  book  of  mine  afresh,  when  it 
makes  its  first  appearance  on  the  other 
side  of  the  water,  and  to  give  it  a  sort 
of  paternal  benediction.  My  American 
readers  have,  I  most  gratefully  record, 
given  more  than  one  of  my  books  a  most 
kindly  and  generous  welcome,  which  I 
hope  they  may  extend  to  this  other 
brother  of  the  same  stock.  As  for  my 
benediction,  the  book,  I  think,  explains 
itself,  and  I  hope  may  be  thought  to 
justify  its  existence;  but  I  should  like 
to  say  a  few  words  about  the  circum- 
stances under  which  it  was  written,  and 
the  type  of  education  it  aimed  at  defining 
and  criticising. 

I  was  for  seven  years  an  Eton  boy, 
and  for  three  years  I  was  at  Kings  Col- 


vili  Introduction 

lege,  Cambridge,  which  is  a  sister-founda- 
tion of  Eton,  and  was,  in  my  day  at  all 
events,  penetrated  by  Eton  associa- 
tions and  traditions.  I  lived,  so  to  speak, 
in  an  Eton  enclosure,  and  mainly  in  the 
Eton  set,  and  then  I  went  back  to  Eton 
as  a  master,  and  remained  there  in  that 
capacity  for  nearly  twenty  years.  It 
was  a  very  full  and  active  life,  but  it  did 
not  give  one  much  opportunity  of  ex- 
tending one's  educational  horizon.  What 
wonder  if  in  this  book  I  assumed,  not 
pretentiously,  I  trust,  a  somewhat  defi- 
nite standpoint,  and  if  my  acquired 
and  habitual  bias  failed  in  the  wider 
sympathies.  Eton  is  not  a  typical  school, 
even  of  English  public  schools.  There 
is  a  studied  and  guarded  independence, 
both  social  and  disciplinary,  about  Eton 
which  I  think  is  not  precisely  to  be 
found  at  any  other  school,  and  on  read- 
ing through  my  book  it  seems  to  me  that 
in  this  point  it  may  seem  to  lack  verisi- 
militude, that  it  recognises  a  sort  of  free- 
dom, both  of  judgment  and  action,  on 


Introduction  ix 

the  part  of  the  pupil,  which  may  seem  to 
argue  undue  deference  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher,  and  undue  wilfulness  on  the  part 
of  the  taught — yet  I  can  only  say  that 
the  method  worked  very  well  at  Eton, 
and  that  though  there  are  points  in  the 
Eton  system  that  I  would  like  to  see 
altered,  this  particular  point  and  the 
peculiar  kind  of  reasonable  subordination 
it  develops  is  one  that  I  would  rather  see 
emphasised  than  modified. 

Apart  from  this,  I  suppose  that  the 
aims  and  hopes,  the  failures  and  diffi- 
culties of  the  teacher  are  very  much  the 
same  in  all  schools.  Teaching  is  a  human 
process  after  all  and  follows  the  dramatic 
influences  of  temperament,  rather  than 
the  scientific  deductions  of  psychology. 
The  one  merit  which  the  book  possesses, 
or  may  possess,  is  that  it  is  a  faithful 
attempt  to  record  frankly  and  candidly 
the  results  of  impression  and  observation ; 
that  while  it  suggests  experiment,  it 
deprecates  any  stereotyped  adoption  of 
the  methods  of  others;  and  that  it  never 


X  Introduction 

indulges  in  any  recommendations  except 
such  as  have  been  deduced  from  experi- 
ence and  tested  by  practice. 

Arthur  C.  Benson. 

Magdalene  College,  Cambridge, 
April  9th,  1908. 


THE   SCHOOLMASTER 


THE   SCHOOLMASTER 


INTRODUCTORY 

1  THINK  it  must  be  conceded  at  the 
outset  that  there  cHngs  about  the  pro- 
fession of  schoolmastering  a  certain  sHght 
social  disabihty;  it  is  regarded  as  one  of 
the  less  liberal  of  the  liberal  professions  :* 
it  is  not  a  profession  which,  to  use  a  vile 
phrase,  *'  leads  to  "  anything  in  particular; 
that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  held  to  be  a  pro- 
fession for  a  very  capable  or  ambitious 

*  It  may  roughly  be  said  that  the  professions  which 
stand  highest  in  the  social  scale  are  the  army,  the  navy, 
the  bar,  land  agency,  and  the  civil  service.  We  may 
perhaps  include  with  these  artists,  architects,  and  lit- 
erary men.  In  the  second  rank  come  the  solicitor,  the 
engineer,  the  doctor,  the  schoolmaster;  the  Church, 
which  formerly  belonged  to  the  upper  grade,  now 
stands  somewhat  apart,  and  may  be  called  a  vocation 
rather  than  a  profession. 
I 


2       '  •    Introductory 

man.  This  is  not  necessarily  a  low  point 
of  view.  Ambition  is  a  fine  quality,  and 
a  man  who  is  conscious  of  ability  and 
power,  who  holds  energetic  views,  who 
has  decided  proclivities,  who  becomes 
aware  that  his  own  views  influence  other 
people  more  than  their  views  afTect  him, 
is  naturally  anxious  to  play  a  big,  brave 
part  in  life.  Putting  aside  the  merely 
artistic  pleasure  in  applause  and  admira- 
tion, which  is  without  doubt  a  strong 
motive  in  many  cases,  a  man  may  well 
desire  to  wield  power  and  influence,  to 
be  somebody,  to  handle  large  interests 
successfully,  to  have  his  hand  on  the 
machine  of  politics  or  commerce  or 
society.  Such  an  ambition  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  mean  one,  though  this  depends 
upon  whether  a  man  looks  to  the  doing 
of  great  work  in  a  great  way,  or  to  the 
rewards  and  emoluments  of  such  work. 
Probably  monstrari  digito,  as  Horace  said, 
is  a  powerful  motive  with  the  young; 
it  seems  an  admirable  thing  to  be  re- 
ceived with  deference,  courteously  treated, 


Prospects  3 

obeyed,  reverenced;  though  the  man 
who  has  attained  to  a  position  which 
commands  respect  often  finds  the  pub- 
h'city  tiresome  and  the  deference  con- 
ventional. Still,  few  successful  men 
would  view  with  equanimity  the  possi- 
bility of  eclipse  and  obscurity;  and  it 
would  be  foolish  to  pretend  that  powder 
and  influence  and  position  are  not  some 
of  the  best  and  most  pleasant  things 
that  the  world  has  to  give, — indeed,  in 
spite  of  the  w^amings  of  uneasy  moralists, 
it  is  clear  that  they  often  have  a  very 
beneficial  effect  upon  a  character. 

But  the  man  who  adopts  the  profession 
of  a  schoolmaster  cannot  hope  for  these 
things  in  any  great  measure.  If  he  takes 
orders,  he  may  aspire  to  a  headmaster- 
ship,  and  then,  at  a  time  of  life  when  the 
spirits  begin  to  flag  a  little,  and  when  the 
physical  alertness  that  is  so  essential  a 
feature  in  dealing  with  the  young  is  a  little 
dimmed,  he  can  hope  for  a  more  mature 
sphere  of  action  in  a  parish,  a  canonry, 
or  even  a  bishopric.     But  the  average 


4  Introductory 

lay  schoolmaster  is  practically  debarred 
from  a  later  career.  He  must  make  up 
his  mind  that  his  activities  will  probably 
begin  and  end  with  his  mastership.  Then, 
too — for  it  is  as  well  to  state  the  disad- 
vantages frankly  and  candidly — he  must 
look  forward  to  doing  a  good  deal  of 
drudgery  of  various  kinds.  He  must  be 
prepared  to  go  on  insisting  on  a  relent- 
less accuracy,  to  continue  correcting  the 
same  mistakes  year  after  year,  to  impose 
upon  tender  minds  a  number  of  facts 
which  are  not  superficially  attractive,  and 
which  possibly  he  may  have  the  mis- 
fortune to  consider  unimportant  in  them- 
selves. He  must  be  prepared  for  an 
almost  inevitable  intellectual  cramping  of 
interests,  prepared  to  deal  incessantly 
with  minds  in  which  he  can  take  nothing 
for  granted,  which  have  neither  know- 
ledge nor  necessarily  interest.  He  must 
perpetually  resist  the  impulse  to  soar, 
and  must  return  again  and  again  to  ele- 
mentary facts  and  simple  problems  in 
their  most  unrefreshing  stage;  to  be  an 


Disadvantages  5 

interesting  teacher  he  must  have  a  mind 
resembling  a  number  of  Tit-Bits^  stored 
with  superficial  knowledge  arranged  in 
an   attractive  form. 

Then  if  he  aspires  to  keep  a  boarding- 
house,  he  must  be  prepared  to  face  humble 
domestic  problems,  which  tend  too  to 
grow  more  complicated  every  year,  in  the 
spirit  of  a  caterer  or  hotel  manager.  No 
enthusiasm  will  ever  quite  succeed  in 
gilding  a  trade  which  consists,  in  part,  of 
providing  food  and  lodging  for  a  large 
number  of  people  and  charging  them 
rather  more  than  they  cost. 

Then,  too,  in  his  dealings  with  men  of 
equal  age,  he  must  be  prepared  to  be  con- 
sidered rather  a  tiresome  person,  living 
somewhat  apart  from  the  main  current 
of  affairs.  He  must  be  prepared  to  meet 
people  who  will  be  on  the  look-out  for 
any  signs  of  a  dictatorial  manner,  and 
quick  to  mark  any  tendency  towards  a 
lust  for  imparting  information.  And  he 
must  be  prepared  also  to  be  treated 
as  a  kind  of  clergyman,  as  a  man  who  is 


6  Introductory 

bound  by  his  profession  to  adopt  a  con- 
ventional view  and  to  luxuriate  in  genial 
priggishness. 

He  cannot  hope  to  accumulate  great 
wealth,  unless  indeed  he  is  in  the  position 
of  having  sufficient  capital  to  start  a 
private  school  of  his  own;  and  even  then 
he  runs  a  certain  risk  of  failure,  unless  his 
aptitude  for  leadership  is  instinctive  and 
his  connections  secure. 

These  are  the  superficial  disadvantages 
of  the  trade;  and  it  must  be  confessed 
that  they  are  considerable. 

The  superficial  advantages  are  soon 
stated.  A  mastership  in  a  good  public 
school — and  it  is  the  holders  of  such  posts 
for  whose  consideration  these  pages  are 
intended — means  an  immediate  compe- 
tence. It  means  a  life  of  regular  work, 
with  possibilities  of  physical  exercise  tend- 
ing on  the  whole  to  health  and  activity; 
it  means  a  prospect  of  marriage;  it  means 
good  holidays;  and  it  means  also  the 
interest  which  always  attaches  to  dealing 
with    human    beings    at   a   lovable  and 


Vocation  7 

interesting  age;  it  means  a  succession 
and  an  increasing  circle  of  friends ;  and  it 
implies,  which  is  not  the  least  of  advant- 
ages, a  connection  with  an  institution 
which  calls  out  feelings  of  patriotism, 
affection,  and  pride,  an  institution  with 
traditions  and  hopes,  with  a  past,  a  vivid 
present,  and  a  great  future. 

We  may  now  shortly  consider  the  ques- 
tion of  a  vocation,  and  I  am  afraid  that 
it  must  be  confessed  that  the  profession 
of  a  schoolmaster  is  one  that  is  more 
apt  to  be  entered  by  those  who  have 
no  particular  vocation  for  anything  else, 
than  any  other  profession.  A  certain 
number  of  young  men  go  up  to  the  Uni- 
versity every  year  who  are  conscious  that 
they  will  be  obliged  to  earn  their  living, 
without  any  very  definite  idea  as  to  how 
it  is  to  be  done.  Of  these  some  become 
civil  servants,  some  solicitors,  some  drift 
into  literature,  some  become  University 
dons,  some  go  into  business,  but  many 
tend  to  become  schoolmasters;  to  be  a 
doctor,  an  engineer,  a  clergyman,  or  a 


8  Introductory 

soldier,  it  is  necessary  to  make  up  the 
mind  at  the  outset  of  the  University 
career.  But  it  may  be  said  that  while 
there  are  some  few  who  by  traditions  or 
predilection  are  destined  to  be  school- 
masters, a  far  larger  number  have  a  vague 
feeling  at  the  back  of  their  minds  that  if 
everything  else  fail  they  can  always  be 
teachers.  Putting  this  latter  class  aside 
for  a  moment,  even  of  the  former  class 
there  are  comparatively  few  who  look 
forward  with  eagerness  or  enthusiasm  to 
the  profession:  a  large  proportion  think 
dimly  of  teaching  as  a  profession  which 
they  would  not  actively  dislike.  They 
have  seen  it  practised  more  or  less  suc- 
cessfully by  the  masters  whom  they  have 
been  under;  and  it  may  be  said  roughly 
that  schoolmasters  are  probably  the  only 
professional  men  whom  the  boys  have 
seen  at  close  quarters  for  a  considerable 
time  engaged  in  their  professional  work. 
At  home,  if  they  have  lived  in  a  profes- 
sional circle,  they  have  generally  seen 
the   domestic   side   of   the   practitioners 


Vocation  9 

among  whom  they  have  lived,  they  have 
seen  them,  in  fact,  off  duty;  but  school- 
masters they  have  seen,  for  several 
impressible  years,  on  duty;  and  if  the 
spectacle  does  not  produce  any  very  lively 
enthusiasm — the  spectacle  of  schoolmas- 
tering  as  it  is  generally  practised  in  Eng- 
land— at  all  events  it  is  something  to  say 
that  it  does  not  nowadays  breed  a  very 
active  dislike.  The  life  of  the  school- 
master does  not  appear  wholly  unat- 
tractive; the  possibility  of  a  continuity  of 
physical  exercise  is  probably  one  of  its 
main  charms  to  young  men;  but  in  other 
respects  the  life  appears  tolerable.  There 
is  a  certain  attractiveness  about  the  per- 
petual exercise  of  minute  control;  there  is 
a  sense,  very  strong  in  the  British  char- 
acter, of  pleasure  in  exercising  discipline 
and  showing  power,  even  in  a  limited 
circle.  And  there  is,  moreover,  a  growing 
tendency  to  look  upon  the  public  school- 
master as  on  the  whole  a  worthy,  good- 
humoured,  and  sensible  man — a  figure 
which,  if  it  does  not  kindle  high  enthu- 


/ 


lo  Introductory 


siasm,  at  any  rate  does  not  present  any 
specially  sordid  or  repulsive  features. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  only  a 
small  percentage  of  people  enter  pro- 
fessions with  a  very  definite  sense  of 
enthusiasm  for  the  discharge  of  its  duties. 
Most  people  would  rather  look  forward 
to  a  prospect  of  doing  w^hat  they  like. 
If  the  prospect  of  a  life  of  absolute 
indolence  appeals  to  but  few,  most  people 
think  that  they  could  organise  a  life  of 
leisure  in  a  virtuous  and  pleasurable  way. 
The  question  is  whether  schoolmastering 
is  a  life  where  the  sense  of  vocation  can 
be  developed  in  the  exercise  of  the  pro- 
fession itself.  The  answer  is  strongly  in 
the  affirmative. 

Until  recently  there  were  a  large 
number  of  men  who  entered  the  clerical 
profession  without  any  strong  sense  of 
vocation.  So  long  as  they  were  not  in- 
conveniently sceptical,  it  seemed  a  life 
which  resembled  on  a  small  scale  and 
with  a  few  disadvantages  the  life  of  a 
country  gentleman.      Many  a  man  who 


Vocation  n 

took  orders  did  so  because  the  position 
was  one  which  implied  no  great  strain; 
which  afforded  possibiHties  of  sport  and 
quiet  society  and  agricultural  occupation. 
Such  men  had  no  burning  desire  to  save 
souls  or  to  supply  the  water  of  life  to 
thirsting  parishioners.  In  many  cases 
they  were  aware  that  the  parishioners  to 
whom  they  intended  to  minister  had  no 
more  desire  for  spiritual  sustenance  than 
they  had  for  imparting  it.  But  such  men 
often  turned  out  admirable  clergymen. 
They  were  honest,  kind,  straightforward, 
virtuous;  and  they  found  moreover  that 
any  profession  which  brings  a  man  into 
close  relations  with  men  and  women  is  apt 
to  soften  and  deepen  the  heart.  The  sight 
of  poverty  and  suffering  and  death  has  a 
wonderful  effect  upon  the  human  spirit, 
and  such  men  often  gained,  as  life  went  on, 
a  pastoral  if  not  an  apostolic  character. 
The  very  words  of  the  liturgy,  that  meant 
but  little  to  them  at  the  beginning  of  their 
career,  became  charged  with  tender  mean- 
ings and  holy  associations. 


12  Introductory 

So  it  is  with  schoolmastering.  There 
is  no  profession  which  is  so  apt,  if  exer- 
cised faithfully  and  sympathetically  and 
tenderly,  to  broaden  the  character  and 
enlarge  the  spirit.  A  man  who  goes  to 
be  a  schoolmaster  with  the  expectation 
of  having  to  discharge  prescribed  duties 
and  afterwards  to  fill  his  leisure  time  as 
cheerfully  as  he  may,  suddenly  wakes  up  to 
find  himself  in  the  grip  of  all  kinds  of  prob- 
lems ;  he  finds  himself  bound,  like  Gulliver, 
with  all  kinds  of  Lilliputian  chains.  The 
little  people,  who  seem  at  first  sight  to  be 
all  so  much  alike  in  tastes  and  character,  he 
realises  are  human  beings  with  hearts  and 
idiosyncrasies.  He  finds  himself  guiding 
and  leading.  The  paternal,  the  protective 
instinct,  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  so 
many  male  hearts,  wakes  up ;  the  man  who 
began  as  the  careless,  self-regarding  prac- 
titioner of  a  not  very  dignified  trade,  dis- 
covers that  he  is  in  the  thick  of  a  very  real 
and  vivid  life,  which  stirs  all  sorts  of  in- 
terests and  emotions  and  brings  home  to 
him  some  of  the  deep  realities  of  life. 


II 

TRAINING  OF  TEACHERS 

[CONFESS  that  I  am  somewhat  scep- 
tical about  the  training  of  teachers; 
it  seems  to  me  Hke  training  people  to 
become  good  conversationalists.  The  re- 
ceipt is  to  know  the  subject  you  are 
teaching,  and  to  have  a  lively,  genial,  and 
effective  personality.  It  seems  to  me  that 
it  is  an  art  which  cannot  be  learnt  by  dem- 
onstration. To  train  a  man  to  teach, 
without  confronting  him  with  a  class  of 
his  own,  in  stern  isolation,  with  no  one 
to  assist  him  in  a  crisis,  with  no  au- 
thority but  his  own  to  fall  back  upon,  is 
like  teaching  a  man  to  swim  upon  dry 
land.  Even  a  profound  knowledge  of 
the  subject  is  comparatively  unimportant 
except  in  advanced  work;  a  brisk,  idle 
man  with  a  knack  of  exposition  and  the 
13 


14  Training  of  Teachers 

art  of  clear  statement  can  be  a  scandal- 
ously effective  teacher.  In  fact,  the  more 
profound  the  knowledge  of  the  teacher  is, 
the  more  risk  there  is  of  his  being  unable 
to  sympathise  with  the  difficulties  of  boys, 
and  of  his  being  incapable  of  conceiving 
the  possible  depths  of  their  ignorance. 
The  perfect  combination  is  sound  know- 
ledge, endless  patience,  and  inexhaustible 
S3^mpathy.  A  man  who  can  keep  the  boys 
interested  and  amused,  who  can  appre- 
ciate the  slender  nuances  which  differen- 
tiate the  work  of  a  boy  who  has  tried  to 
learn  his  lesson  from  the  work  of  a  boy 
who  has  just  done  enough  to  pass  muster, 
will  have  a  much  greater  effect  on  a  class 
than  a  man  whose  knowledge  is  far  deeper, 
but  who  has  not  the  art  of  commanding 
attention,  or  of  sympathising  with  the 
unformed  mind.  The  real  difficulty  is 
the  question  of  discipline,  and  no  one  can 
possibly  be  an  effective  teacher  who  has 
to  be  always  looking  about  for  signs 
of  inattention  and  misbehaviour.  And 
here  lies  the  root  of  the  matter.     A  man 


Sympathy  15 

may  have  conducted  classes  satisfac- 
torily at  a  training  college  where  the 
disciplinary  difficulty  is  non-existent,  he 
may  have  seen  and  heard  a  lesson  bril- 
liantly conducted  by  an  effective  teacher, 
but  when  he  is  face  to  face  with  a  class 
of  his  own,  he  may  find  that  he  has  no 
real  control,  and  that  he  cannot  com- 
mand the  attention  of  the  boys  sufficiently 
to  allow  him  to  imitate  the  method  he  has 
seen  successfully  pursued.  Moreover,  in 
teaching,  which  is  above  all  things  a  spon- 
taneous, a  dramatic  process,  the  method 
of  conducting  a  lesson  must  be  to  a  great 
extent  a  matter  of  idiosyncrasy.  No  one 
can  form  himself  upon  a  model.  Some 
masters  have  the  art  of  rapid  questioning, 
some  the  art  of  exposition,  and  it  matters 
little  which  is  employed,  so  long  as  the 
result  is  alertness  and  interest  in  the  boys. 
The  best  training  of  all  would  be  to  be 
able  to  observe  through  a  loophole  the 
conducting  of  a  lesson  by  a  first-rate 
teacher — I  say  through  a  loophole,  be- 
cause there  are  many  first-rate  teachers 


i6  Training  of  Teachers 

the  edge  of  whose  teaching  would  be 
dulled  if  the  lesson  had  to  be  conducted 
in  the  presence  of  a  critical  observer. 
I  have  myself  known  a  master  whose 
teaching  greatly  impressed  the  head- 
master whenever  he  visited  the  school- 
room. The  teacher  in  question  was 
learned,  accurate,  and  clear-headed;  his 
questions  were  to  the  point,  his  explana- 
tions lucid;  but  the  headmaster  did  not 
know  that  it  was  only  his  own  presence 
that  kept  the  class  in  a  submissive  frame 
of  mind,  and  that  on  ordinary  occasions 
the  time  of  the  master  was  so  fully  occu- 
pied by  an  entirely  unsuccessful  attempt 
to  keep  the  boys  in  order  that  he  never 
had  an  opportunity  of  indulging  in  the 
lucid  exposition  of  the  lesson  which  had 
seemed  so  impressive. 

The  fact  is  that  the  boys  who  have  been 
through  a  public  school  themselves  have 
practically  been  trained  as  teachers  as  far 
as  training  can  be  given.  They  have  seen 
innumerable  lessons  given,  and  they  can 
to  a  certain  extent  divScriminate  methods. 


Discipline  17 

The  teacher's  aim  is,  after  all,  to  make 
the  boys  think — to  put  them  into  such  a 
frame  of  mind  that  they  will  take  in  and 
assimilate  knowledge  and  make  it  their 
own,  not  to  drive  facts  in  like  a  row  of 
nails.  The  best  teacher  I  have  ever 
heard  is  one  who  deals  very  little  with 
questions,  but  lectures  with  a  zest  and 
with  a  certain  air  of  bringing  out  facts 
of  incredible  importance,  which  could  not 
be  obtained  in  any  other  place  and  in  any 
other  circumstances.  The  result  is  that 
the  boys  are  kept  in  a  state  of  pleased 
expectancy.  And  this  knowledge  is  not 
only  such  as  stands  the  test  of  examina- 
tions; it  attracts  the  boys  to  the  subject, 
it  makes  them  enthusiastic. 

I  do  not  say  that  it  is  not  an  advantage 
to  a  man  to  have  passed  through  a  certain 
period  of  training,  but  I  do  maintian  that 
such  training  can  never  make  a  man  an 
effective  teacher.  It  may  just  give  him 
an  inkling  of  how  to  set  to  work;  but  a 
sensible  man,  with  a  gift  for  discipline, 
who  can  realise  that  the  small  boys,  whom 


1 8  Training  of  Teachers 

he  will  almost  certainly  have  to  begin  by 
teaching,  are  sure  to  be  almost  entirely 
ignorant  and  very  slow  of  comprehension, 
but  that  if  their  interest  can  once  be 
aroused  they  will  make  rapid  progress, — 
such  a  man  will  learn  more  in  a  week 
from  teaching  a  division  of  his  own,  where 
he  has  no  one  to  depend  on  but  himself, 
than  in  months  spent  at  a  training  college. 

What  I  believe  would  be  a  still  better 
system  would  be  to  attach  a  young  master 
on  first  going  to  a  public  school,  to  some 
competent  senior — to  get  the  senior  mas- 
ter to  be  present  when  he  takes  a  lesson, 
and  occasionally  to  take  a  lesson  before 
him.  But  as  far  as  mere  methods  are 
concerned,  I  am  sure  I  could  tell  a  young 
man  in  half  an  hour  the  simple  dodges 
which  have  proved  in  my  own  case  useful 
and  effective. 

The  best  training  that  a  teacher  can  get 
is  the  training  that  he  can  give  himself. 
If  he  has  found  an  illustration  or  a  story 
effective,  let  him  note  it  down  for  future 
use;  let  him  read  widely  rather  than  pro- 


Methods  19 

foundly,  so  that  he  has  a  large  stock-in- 
trade  of  anecdote  and  illustration.  Let 
him  try  experiments;  let  him  grasp  that 
monotony  is  the  one  thing  that  alienates 
the  attention  of  boys  sooner  than  any- 
thing else;  let  him  contrive  to  get  brisk 
periods  of  intense  work  rather  than  long 
tracts  of  dreary  work.  These  are  facts 
which  can  only  be  learnt  by  practice  and 
among  the  boys.  I  declare  I  believe  that 
one  of  the  most  useful  qualities  that  I 
have  found  myself  to  possess  from  the 
point  of  view  of  teaching  is  the  capacity , 
for  being  rapidly  and  easily  bored  my-' 
self.  If  the  teditim  of  a  long  and  dull 
lesson  is  insupportable  to  myself,  I  have 
enough  imagination  to  know  that  it  must 
be  far  worse  for  the  boys. 

(Education  is  not  and  cannot  be  a 
wholly  scientific  thing.  |  It  is  the  contact 
of  one  mind  with  another,  and  it  is  gov- 
erned by  the  same  laws  that  the  inter- 
course of  men  in  ordinary  life  is  governed 
by.  A  teacher  must  keep  himself  fresh 
in  mind  and  body  alike,  and  a  dreary, 


20  Training  of  Teachers 

tired,  and  dispirited  man  is  not  likely 
to  produce  any  profound  impression  on 
the  tender  mind,  except  that  the  subjects 
which  he  endeavours  to  instil  are  in  them- 
selves a  tedious  and  uninspiring  business. 
One  last  mistake  I  may  touch  upon 
here.  I  have  known  very  worthy  teach- 
ers who  have  insisted  with  conscientious 
perseverance  in  only  imparting  know- 
ledge of  a  kind  that  ought  to  interest  the 
well-regulated  mind.  Now  very  few 
minds  are  well-regulated,  and  I  have 
found  myself  that  the  only  way  to  in- 
terest boys  is  to  treat  frankly  of  what  has 
interested  myself,  without  any  reference 
as  to  whether  it  ought  to  have  interested 
me.  The  result  is  not  invariably  success- 
ful— a  man  must  have  sufficient  tact  to 
see  that  a  hobby  of  his  own  is  not  always 
attractive  to  immature  minds — but  it  is 
generally  so;  whereas  to  regulate  one's 
teaching  by  a  standard  of  dignity  is 
generally  to  succeed  in  depriving  it  of  the 
last  shred  of  interest,  j  One  must  be 
sincere  in  teaching  above  all  things,  and 


Mistakes  21 

it  is  impossible  to  be  convincing  if  one 
is  perpetually  endeavouring  to  enforce 
things  in  which  one  does  not  believe. 

Lastly,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
best  system  of  all,  if  it  were  feasible, would 
be  to  send  a  young  man  for  a  few  weeks 
to  a  training  college  after  he  has  had  say 
a  year's  experience  of  teaching  in  a  school. 
He  will  have  learnt  by  that  time  what  his 
weak  points  are,  he  will  have  some  idea  of 
what  the  difficulties  are.  He  will  be  alert 
to  see  how  to  deal  with  a  lesson,  how  to 
explain,  what  kind  of  questions  to  put 
and  how  to  put  them.  He  will  probably 
have  acquired  some  enthusiasm  for  his 
art;  he  will  realise  that  what  seemed  so 
simple  in  the  hands  of  a  skilled  teacher, 
before  he  had  any  experience  of  difficul- 
ties, is  not  an  easy  matter  after  all. 


Ill 

DISCIPLINE 

THE  power  of  maintaining  discipline 
is  the  unum  necessarium  for  a 
teacher;  if  he  has  not  got  it  and  cannot 
acquire  it,  he  had  better  sweep  a  cross- 
ing. It  insults  the  soul,  it  is  destructive 
of  all  self-respect  and  dignity  to  be  in- 
cessantly at  the  mercy  of  boys.  They 
are  merciless,  and  the  pathos  of  the  situa- 
tion never  touches  them  at  all.  A  friend 
told  me  the  other  day  that  at  a  certain 
public  school,  a  division  of  which  he  was 
a  member  was  often  taken  by  a  worthy 
man  and  a  good  scholar  who  was  utterly 
incapable  of  preserving  even  a  semblance 
of  order.  The  conversation  was  general, 
books  were  flying  across  the  room,  the 
whole  division  used  to  rise  to  their  feet 
every  time  the  clock  struck  and  make  for 

22 


Order  2^ 

the  door  with  an  air  of  blithe  unconscious- 
ness; he  had  seen  the  master  leave  his 
seat  too  and  hurry  to  the  door  to  put  his 
back  against  it.  Some  of  the  boys — in  no 
priggish  spirit,  he  said,  but  with  the  feel- 
ing that  the  spectacle  was  an  unworthy 
one — resolved  among  themselves  to  try 
and  stop  this;  they  waited  outside  the 
room  and  implored  everyone  to  behave 
themselves;  but  it  was  impossible  to 
resist  the  impulse,  and  five  minutes  after 
the  lesson  had  begun  the  boy  who  had 
been  most  urgent  in  his  entreaties  was 
busily  employed  in  constructing  a  long 
rope  of  quill  pens,  which  he  pushed,  as 
a  sweep  pushes  his  jointed  bnish,  across 
the  room  to  his  friends  opposite. 

A  boy,  under  similar  circumstances, 
was  sent  to  his  tutor  by  the  master  of 
his  school  division,  with  a  complaint  of 
serious  insubordination.  Little  by  little 
the  story  came  out,  and  it  appeared  that 
he  had  put  a  dormouse  down  the  master's 
back,  between  his  neck  and  his  collar, 
as  he  sat  correcting  an  exercise.     *'How 


24  Discipline 

was  I  to  know  he  drew  the  line  at  a 
dormouse?"  said  the  boy  tearfully,  giving 
a  dreadful  glimpse  of  what  had  been 
tolerated. 

Such  stories  are  not  edifying,  but  they 
are  true;  and  any  young  teacher  must 
take  into  account  the  fact  that  such 
things  may  befall  himself.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  equally  true  that  many  masters 
begin  badly  and  improve  in  this  respect; 
they  fight  with  beasts  at  Ephesus,  and 
prevail.  It  is  not  easy  to  restore  order  to 
a  division  which  has  got  thoroughly  out 
of  hand;  but  time  passes,  and  a  master 
finds  a  new  division  under  him,  and  he 
has  learnt  experience.  I  think  that  in 
this  respect  English  boys  are  probably 
different  from  others;  they  are  highly 
independent,  but  on  the  other  hand  they 
are  amenable  to  strict  discipline,  do  not 
dislike  being  dragooned,  and  have  con- 
siderable admiration  for  severity.  They 
are  moreover  highly  imitative,  and  if  a 
master  can  by  any  means  reduce  the 
leading  spirits  to  obedience,  the  rest  will 


Temper  25 

follow  suit.  Moreover,  if  a  master  once 
gets  a  reputation  for  strictness  his  diffi- 
culties are  at  an  end.  The  boys  will  come 
to  him  expecting  to  obey,  and  it  will 
never  occur  to  them  to  do  otherwise. 

The  qualities  which  command  obedi- 
ence are  not  easy  to  define.  Personal 
impressiveness  smooths  the  way,  of  course. 
A  man  must  know  exactly  what  he  wants, 
and  must  go  on  until  he  gets  it.  It  is  not 
enough  to  be  merely  strict,  a  man  must 
be  good-humoured.  A  turn  for  ready 
repartee  is  a  very  useful  thing,  because 
a  boy  above  all  things  dislikes  being 
made  to  feel  a  fool  before  others.  A 
certain  quiet  irony,  as  long  as  it  is  not 
cruel,  is  a  very  effective  weapon,  but  not 
to  be  used  except  by  indubitably  good- 
natured  men.  Another  very  useful  qual- 
ity is  the  power  of  losing  one's  temper 
with  dignity;  almost  all  people,  whether 
boys  or  men,  dislike  being  confronted 
with  anger;  but  it  must  be  kept  in  the 
background.  I  remember  a  very  effective 
master  whose  temper  was  quick,  but  who 


26  Discipline 

had  it  entirely  under  control.  I  do  not 
think  I  ever  saw  him  break  out,  but  there 
was  something  singularly  impressive,  if 
anything  occurred  which  he  disliked,  in 
the  momentary  silence  which  followed, 
as  he  sat  with  compressed  lips  and  clouded 
brow — it  made  the  boys  feel  that  there 
was  something  behind  which  had  better 
not  be  provoked.  As  a  rule,  a  disciplin- 
ary difficulty  had  better  not  be  dealt 
with  on  the  spot ;  if  a  boy  is  told  to  wait 
afterwards,  he  has  to  pass  a  disagreeable 
period,  wondering  what  is  going  to  hap- 
pen; and  the  excitement  has  a  way  of 
oozing  out  of  the  heels  of  the  boots  on 
such  occasions.  Moreover,  boys  are  gen- 
erally reasonable  enough  alone;  there  is 
a  kind  of  excitement,  which  might  be 
called  comitialisy  which  sustains  a  boy  in 
the  presence  of  his  fellows. 

But  the  qualities  of  which  I  have 
spoken  are  mainly  negative  qualities, 
to  be  kept  in  the  background  as  far  as 
possible.  Courtesy,  approbation,  appre- 
ciation are  far  more  valuable  allies;    a 


Punishments  27 

ready  smile,  an  agreeable  manner,  a 
rebuke  given  in  the  form  of  a  compli- 
ment are  infinitely  more  effective.  One 
of  the  best  disciplinarians  I  have  ever 
seen  put  an  end  to  what  tended  to  be  a 
disagreeable  scene  by  saying  to  an  ill- 
conditioned  boy  who  had  lost  his  temper, 
in  a  voice  of  unruffled  suavity,  "Smith, 
I  don't  think  we  see  you  at  your  best 
on  this  occasion." 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  ■  that  the 
disciplinary  difficulty  is  greatly  dimin- 
ished of  late  years,  mainly,  I  think,  by 
the  human  and  pleasant  relations  which 
begin  at  the  private  schools.  A  master 
is  not  necessarily  yet  considered  as  a 
guide,  philosopher,  or  friend,  but  he  is 
certainly  no  longer  looked  upon  as  a 
boy's  natural  enemy. 

I  am  no  believer  in  punishments;  in- 
deed, I  think  that  to  set  punishments  is 
merely  a  sign  of  weakness.  Small  punish- 
ments are  simply  irritating,  and  it  is  far 
better  to  give  several  warnings  and  then 
come  down  with  all  your  might.     Only 


28  Discipline 

deliberate  offences  deserve  punishments. 
As  to  corporal  punishment,  the  doubtful 
privilege  of  dispensing  it  is,  at  my  own 
school,  not  conceded  to  the  assistant-mas- 
ters. I  can  only  say  that  I  have  hardly  ever 
known  a  case  where  it  was  required,  and 
on  the  few  occasions  when  I  should  have 
liked  to  cane  a  boy,  I  have  never  regretted 
that  I  was  unable  to  do  so.  It  cannot 
be  entirely  abolished,  I  suppose.  There 
are  a  few  mischievous,  tiresome,  malevo- 
lent boys,  probably  undeveloped,  who 
require  it,  but  even  then  it  is  better  to 
leave  it  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the 
headmaster. 

My  own  practice  is  to  give  every  new 
division  a  little  pastoral  lecture  at  the 
beginning  of  the  half.  To  say  exactly 
what  I  mean  to  have  and  exactly  what 
I  do  not  mean  to  have.  To  tell  the  boys 
frankly  that  I  mean  to  do  my  best,  and 
that  I  expect  their  best.  To  say  that  even 
if  I  cannot  always  praise  every  good  piece 
of  work,  I  shall  not  be  found  lacking 
in  appreciation  of  it;   to  say  that  I  don't 


House  Discipline  29 

deal  in  punishments,  but  that  if  they  are 
necessary,  they  will  be  of  a  kind  that  will 
be  remembered;  and  finally,  to  say  that 
we  all  start  as  friends,  and  that  I  hope  we 
shall  remain  so. 

It  is  certainly  a  mistake  to  deal  in 
sentiment  too  much — in  matters  of  disci- 
pline the  boys  should  have  plain  and 
common-sense  motives  put  before  them. 
One  of  the  most  ineffective  masters  I 
have  ever  known  told  a  colleague  that 
he  had  one  form  of  appeal  w^hich  he  em- 
ployed with  invariable  success.  "  I  point," 
he  said,  "my  finger  at  the  offender,  and 
ask  him  how  he  would  like  his  mother 
to  see  him  at  the  moment  behaving  as  he 
is  behaving."  Fortunately  most  masters 
have  some  sense  of  humour  which  would 
save  them  from  such  a  display  of  fatuity. 
But  the  difficulty  that  besets  all  school- 
masters in  this  particular  matter  is  the 
absence  of  critisism.  Many  masters  use 
far  too  much  dicipline  and  think  they 
cannot  get  on  without  it.  I  have  known 
men  who  are  quite  capable  of  command- 


30  Discipline 

ing  ready  obedience  talk  of  their  *' tariff" 
of  punishments;  on  the  other  hand,  some 
men  are  not  strict  enough,  and  are  quite 
content  as  long  as  there  is  no  overt  dis- 
turbance. A  master  ought  to  consider 
a  boy  who  nods  in  a  comer  or  a  boy  who 
pulls  out  his  watch  as  a  severe  critic  of 
his  magisterial  powers. 

There  is  another  kind  of  discipline 
about  which  a  word  may  be  said,  which 
is  the  discipline  of  a  house.  It  should 
follow  the  same  lines  as  the  discipline 
of  a  division;  there  should  be  as  few 
Irules  as  possible,  and  they  should  be  im- 
plicitly obeyed.  But  in  a  house  a  master 
should,  I  believe,  drop  the  magisterial 
relation  as  far  as  possible,  and  adopt  the 
paternal.  He  should  be  easy,  friendly, 
conversational.  No  boy  should  ever  be 
surprised  to  see  him  in  the  house,  and 
yet  his  presence  there  should  be  obviously 
accounted  for  by  sociable  tastes  and  not 
by  a  desire  to  be  vigilant.  As  much 
authority  as  possible  should  be  delegated 
to  the  upper  boys,  but  at  the  same  time 


House  Discipline  31 

they  should  not  be  allowed  to  use  corporal 
punishment  without  consulting  the  tutor. 
At  one  time  I  used  to  think  that  corporal 
punishment  of  any  kind  should  be  for- 
bidden, but  I  recollect  an  occasion  when 
a  highly  conscientious  captain  came  to 
tell  me  that  he  had  caned  three  boys  in 
the  course  of  the  evening  for  making  a 
disturbance.  "  I  know  you  don't  like  it," 
he  said,  "but  what  am  I  to  do?  I  come 
up  and  tell  them  to  stop,  and  the  moment 
I  am  out  of  sight  they  begin  again.  I 
can't  go  and  say  that  I  shall  tell  you, 
and  I  must  do  something."  Since  that 
time  I  have  acquiesced  in  its  occasional 
use,  but  insist  that  I  shall  always  be 
acquainted  with  it,  if  possible  beforehand. 
Boys  are  highly  reasonable,  and  if  one 
says  to  a  captain  that  after  all  the  house- 
master is  ultimately  held  responsible,  and 
if  there  were  any  complaint  made  by  a 
boy  of  excessive  severity,  the  housemaster 
would  have  to  bear  the  blame,  he  has  no 
difficulty  in  understanding  the  position. 


IV 
TEACHING 

AS  regards  the  art  of  teaching  it  is 
difficult  to  lay  down  rules,  because 
every  man  must  find  out  his  own  method. 
It  is  easy  to  say  that  the  first  requisite  is 
patience,  but  the  statement  requires  con- 
siderable modification.  A  master  must, 
of  course,  realise  that  a  great  many  things 
are  perfectly  clear  to  him  which  are  not 
at  all  clear  to  the  boys,  but  it  is  easy  for 
a  man  of  tranquil  temperament  to  drift 
into  a  kind  of  indulgent  easiness,  which 
ends  in  the  boys  making  no  effort  what- 
ever to  overcome  difficulties  for  them- 
selves. If  a  master  accepts  the  statement 
too  readily,  "I  could  not  make  it  out," 
and  considers  that  a  list  of  words  written 
out  is  ample  evidence  of  the  preparation 
of  a  lesson,  there  are  a  great  many  boys 
32 


Decisiveness  33 

who  will  prepare  a  list  of  likely-looking 
words  and  take  no  further  trouble  about  a 
lesson.  It  is  much  better  for  a  master  to 
insist  briskly  that  some  kind  of  sense 
should  be  made,  though  he  must  tactfully 
discriminate  between  the  industrious, 
muddled  boy  and  the  boy  who  is  simply 
indolent. 

Then,  too,  teaching  should  be  crisp 
and  clear  and  decided.  The  greatest 
compliment  ever  paid  to  a  teacher  by  a 
dull  boy  was  when  the  latter  said  that  the 
books  muddled  him,  because  Hermann 
said  that  a  passage  meant  one  thing,  and 
Schneidewin  said  that  it  meant  another, 
but  that  So-and-so  told  you  what  it 
really  did  mean. 

I  have  known  of  excellent  scholars 
who  deprived  their  teaching  of  much  of 
its  value  by  being  too  tentative,  or  even 
by  having  recourse  to  a  dictionary  in 
public.  It  is  better  to  be  perfectly  deci- 
sive, even  if  you  may  be  occasionally 
wrong.  This  principle  would  not,  of 
course,  apply  to  older  or  abler  boys,  nor 


34  Teaching 

would  it  apply  to  private  tuition  with  a 
smaller  class.  But  for  boys  of  small  capa- 
city it  is  necessary,  by  some  means  or 
other,  to  disabuse  them  of  a  not  unnatural 
delusion,  much  encouraged  by  commen- 
tators, that  a  writer  in  a  foreign  language 
might  have  meant  anything,  and  may 
be  made  to  mean  anything,  by  juggling 
with  words.  It  is  certain  that  many  boys, 
under  our  system  of  education,  do  not 
understand  that  a  writer  has  had  a  defi- 
nite thought  in  his  mind  which  he  is  ex- 
pressing in  a  natural  way;  and  that  our 
diihculty  in  understanding  it  arises  from 
an  absence  of  complete  and  instinctive 
familiarity  with  the  medium  of  expression. 
For  such  boys  decisiveness  is  a  pure 
gain. 

Moreover,  in  young  and  sharp  boys 
there  is  often  a  strong  vein  of  a  certain 
maliciousness ;  and  if  they  imagine  that  a 
teacher  is  imperfectly  acquainted  with 
his  subject,  they  are  quite  capable  ot 
expending  their  dexterity  and  energy  in 
framing  apparently  innocent  questions, 


Variety  35 

with  a  view  to  exposing,  if  possible,  gaps 
in  a  teacher's  knowledge.  With  such 
boys  decisiveness  is  a  necessity. 

A  school  lesson  should  be  of  the  nature 
of  a  dramatic  performance,  from  which 
some  interest  and  amusement  may  be 
expected;  while  at  the  same  time  there 
must  be  solid  and  business-like  work 
done.  Variety  of  every  kind  should  be 
attempted;  the  blackboard  should  be 
used,  there  should  be  some  simple  jesting, 
there  should  be  some  anecdote,  some 
disquisition,  and  some  allusion  if  pos- 
sible to  current  events,  and  the  result 
should  be  that  the  boys  should  not  only 
feel  that  they  have  put  away  some 
definite  knowledge  under  lock  and  key, 
but  also  that  they  have  been  in  contact 
with  a  lively  and  more  mature  mind. 
Exactly  in  what  proportion  the  cauldron 
should  be  mingled,  and  what  its  precise 
ingredients  should  be,  must  be  left  to 
the  taste  and  tact  of  the  teacher.  A 
man  must  be  quick  to  discern  if  the  boys 
by  apparently    innocent    questions   can 


36  Teaching 

set  him  off  in  a  discursive  talk  on  things  in 
general,  and  he  must  also  be  quick  to  see 
when  to  unbend  the  bow.  The  shield 
which  is  within  the  reach  of  every  boy 
against  the  too  insistent  demands  of  a 
teacher  is  absolute  inattention,  combined, 
by  practice,  with  a  demure  look  and 
downcast  eye,  capable  of  deceiving  the 
most  alert.  I  believe  that  there  is  a 
certain  commercial  instinct  in  most  boys, 
which  leads  them  to  like  to  get  good  value 
for  their  money;  and  I  have  heard  boys 
complain  about  an  interesting  teacher 
that  they  never  seemed  to  know  the 
lesson  after  school  was  over.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  here  to  go  into  all  the  various 
little  dodges  for  securing  variety  which 
will  be  useful  to  a  teacher,  but  an  in- 
stance or  two  may  be  given.  The  Greek 
irregular  verbs  are  not  a  particularly  re- 
freshing form  of  study,  but  by  asking  the 
various  forms  in  quick  succession,  making 
the  boys  score  a  mark  if  they  get  one 
right,  and  reading  out  the  marks  obtained, 
a  certain  emulation  is  arrived  at  which  at 


Questions  37 

all  events  makes  a  bo}^  anxious  to  get  as 
many  right  as  he  can.  Again,  if  it  is 
desired  that  boys  should  master  a  diffi- 
cult thing  like  the  Greek  conditional 
sentence,  after  a  lucid  explanation  various 
illustrative  sentences  may  be  dictated, 
supplying  the  Greek  words  to  be  used,  and 
the  boys  required  to  do  them  then  and 
there  on  paper,  it  being  stipulated  that  as 
soon  as  the  whole  division  can  do  them 
rightly  you  will  turn  to  some  less  stren- 
uous work,  and  not  till  then.  It  is 
rewarding  to  see  the  intense  zeal  which 
the  very  slowest  boys  will  take  under 
such  circumstances  to  get  the  thing 
correct. 

Some  teachers  deal  largely  in  questions, 
but  if  the  class  is  large  it  needs  almost 
genius  to  keep  question  and  answer  going 
with  sufficient  rapidity  to  ensure  universal 
attention.  Moreover,  if  the  requisite  en- 
thusiasm is  invoked,  it  requires  a  good 
deal  of  masterfulness  to  keep  it  within 
decorous  bounds.  I  myself  believe  that 
questioning  should  be  more  used  in  small 


38  Teaching 

classes,  and  that  with  a  large  class  a  form 
of  lecturing,  interspersed  with  questions, 
is  the  more  effective.  But  here  again  the 
idiosyncrasy  of  the  man  comes  in;  if  a 
teacher  has  the  gift  of  asking  questions  of 
a  kind  that  stimulate  curiosity  by  their 
form,  and  make  the  answering  them  into 
a  brisk  species  of  intellectual  lawn-tennis, 
he  is  probably  a  very  good  teacher.  But 
few  men  will  probably  have  sufficient 
mental  agility — and  what  is  more,  still 
fewer  boys — and  the  result  will  be  apt  to 
be  that  the  game  will  be  played  between 
the  master  and  a  few  boys  of  some  mental 
rapidity,  and  the  majority  of  the  class  will 
have  but  a  faint  idea  of  what  is  going  on. 
Some  masters  certainly  attach  an  ex- 
travagant value  to  questions  and  answers. 
It  is  recorded  of  an  eminent  headmaster 
that  he  insisted  so  strongly  on  a  general 
and  simultaneous  response  being  made  to 
his  questions  that  the  more  torpid  in- 
tellects used  under  cover  of  the  intelligent 
replies  of  the  better  informed  boys  to 
shout  "Borrioboola-Gha!"  with  an  ap- 


Naturalness  39 

pearance  of  lively  zeal.  The  system  was 
exposed  by  the  fact  that  a  worthy  boy, 
of  some  athletic  prominence,  happened  to 
fall  asleep  on  a  summer's  day,  and  on 
waking  heard  the  headmaster's  voice 
pause  for  a  moment,  and  anxious  to  make 
up  for  his  brief  period  of  unconsciousness, 
indulged  in  his  usual  cry  with  very  good 
will.  But  the  headmaster  had  asked  no 
question,  and  the  lamentable  syllables 
fell  with  appalling  effect  upon  the  quiet 
air.  He  was  instantly  ordered  from  the 
room  for  gross  insubordination,  and  was 
obliged  in  order  to  save  the  situation  to 
give  the  happy  practice  away. 

Of  course  it  goes  without  saying  that 
the  liveliest  teaching  is  spoiled  by  any 
want  of  naturalness.  The  master  should 
be,  and  should  not  be  ashamed  of  showing 
himself  to  be,  generally  interested  in  what 
is  going  on,  and  not  be  merely  bursting 
with  superfluous  information.  To  sit  and 
be  pumped  into,  as  Carlyle  said,  speaking 
of  Coleridge's  conversation,  is  never  an 
exhilarating  process.     But  naturalness, 


40  Teaching 

like  humility,  is  a  virtue  difficult  of 
cultivation,  because  the  absence  of  self- 
consciousness  is  a  necessary  condition  of 
effectiveness. 

One  form  of  affectation  has  I  believe 
very  bad  results.  It  is  the  custom  of 
many  teachers  to  speak  as  if  all  the 
authors  whom  they  were  expounding  were 
equally  valuable  and  equally  attractive. 
I  do  not  think  that  anything  destroys  the 
critical  and  appreciative  faculties  in  boys 
so  quickly  as  this.  I  believe  myself  that  it 
is  good  for  a  teacher  to  have  strong  pre- 
judices, just  as  Dr.  Arnold's  feeling  for 
Livy  partook,  as  his  pupils  said,  of  an 
almost  personal  animosity.  I  think  that 
a  master  should  be  ready  to  say  frankly 
what  his  candid  opinion  of  an  author  is, 
giving  his  reasons,  and  saying  at  the 
same  time  that  it  is  purely  a  matter  of 
opinion.  He  should  not  be  afraid  of  point- 
ing out  the  extraordinary  and  vicious 
coagulations  to  be  found  in  Thucydides, 
the  feeble  fluencies  of  Ovid,  the  lapses 
from  good  taste  in  Horace,  the  sen  ten- 


Preferences  41 

tiousness  of  Euripides ;  and  then  when  he 
freely  and  generously  praises  an  heroic 
passage   of   Homer,    a   pathetic   line   of 
Virgil,  a  piece  of  lively  narrative  by  Xeno- 
phon,  the  ringing  crispness  of  Horace's 
stanzas,  his  words  have  weight.     Boys 
will  see  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  good 
style  and  bad  style,  will  begin  moreover, 
however  feebly,  to  have  preferences  and 
to  have  a  reason  for  a  preference.     Of 
course  it  is  of  little  use  to  get  the  boys  to 
take  hasty  opinions  on  trust,  but  if   a 
master  can  get  a  boy  into  the  habit  of 
forming  an  opinion  at  all,  he  has  done 
valuable  work.     A  conscientious  master 
may  say  that  everyone  ought  to  admire 
Virgil,  and  not  arouse  any  very  definite 
enthusiasm.     But  a  man  who  has  deliv- 
ered a  brisk  diatribe  against  the  faults 
of  style  perceptible  in  Thucydides  on  the 
previous  day,  will  be  heard  with   atten- 
tion and  respect  if  he  says  of  Virgil  that 
he  is  accepted  as  one  of  the  great  writers 
of  the  earth,  and  that  if  anyone  finds 
that  he  can  see  nothing  to  admire  and 


42  Teaching 

love  in  Virgil,  it  is  probably  he  and  not 
Virgil  that  needs  to  be  changed. 

''Like  it,  or  dislike  it,"  said  a  vigorous 
teacher  once  to  a  class  of  boys  in  my  pre- 
sence, "  it  does  n't  matter  twopence  which 
you  do;  only  don't  say  that  you  don't 
care.'' 


WORK 

THE  question  of  work  is  twofold.  It 
must  be  considered  (i)  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  boy;  (2)  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  master. 

(i)  I  believe  very  strongly  in  giving 
boys  plain  and  sensible  reasons  for  the 
work  that  is  required  of  them.  Idleness 
is  not  a  vice  of  little  boys  as  a  rule.  They 
have  not  begun  to  question  the  useful- 
ness of  particular  kinds  of  work,  and 
they  do  not  dislike  occupation.  If  they 
are  disposed  to  neglect  their  work,  it 
will  be  generally  found  that  there  is 
some  strong  counter-attraction;  and  thus, 
among  young  boys,  idleness  is  more 
likely  to  occur  with  boys  of  a  certain 
ability,  with  natural  tastes  of  some  kind 
to  which  they  sacrifice  routine  work. 
43 


44  Work 

Therefore  with  small  boys,  when  idleness 
occurs,  it  is  better  to  make  work  simply 
a  matter  of  obedience.  But  as  boys 
get  older  and  begin  to  question  the  useful- 
ness of  certain  kinds  of  work,  I  have 
found  it  wise  to  tell  them  plainly  that 
every  boy  cannot  be  interested  in  all 
the  work  that  he  does,  but  that  every 
boy  ought  to  be  interested  in  doing  his 
plain  duty.  It  can  be  pointed  out  that 
they  will  probably  have  work  to  do  in 
the  world,  and  that  the  work  will  prob- 
ably be  to  a  great  extent  uninteresting, 
and  that  it  is  advisable  for  everyone  to 
cultivate  the  habit  of  doing  well  and 
conscientiously  whatever  is  demanded 
of  him.  It  is  as  well,  I  think,  to  say  to  a 
boy  that  this  is  the  reason  why  honest 
work  is  expected  of  him,  and  that  this 
is  a  good  reason  for  doing  it ;  but  that  if 
it  is  not  a  sufficient  reason,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  fall  back  on  the  simple 
though  not  so  intelligent  reason,  that  it 
is  at  all  events  a  master's  business  to 
require  it.     A  master  ought,  moreover, 


Industry  45 

to  spare  the  boys  as  far  as  possible  all 
unnecessary  trouble,  and  to  say  that  he 
intends  to  do  so,  and  that  he  expects  in 
return  that  the  boys  will  do  conscien- 
tiously whatever  common  sense  demands. 
I  can  only  say  that  I  have  found  these 
reasons  appreciated  by  boys  and  the 
results  satisfactory. 

On  the  other  hand  a  good  many  boys 
are  not  at  all  averse  to  real  mental  effort ; 
and  a  master's  business  is  to  try  and 
see  that  there  is  mental  effort,  and  not 
to  be  contented  with  mere  mechanical 
copying. 

One  detail  which  may  be  mentioned 
here  is  the  question  of  repetition  lessons. 
It  presents  a  great  difficulty — because  it 
is  work  which  gives  little  trouble  to  some 
boys  who  have  a  good  verbal  memory, 
and  is  an  infinite  and  weary  labour  to 
others.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  clas- 
sical repetition  lessons  are  a  mistake 
except  for  boys  of  definite  classical 
ability;  if  they  are  an  inevitable  part  of 
the  curriculum,  then  the  trouble  should 


46  Work 

be  lightened  as  far  as  possible  by  allow- 
ing slower  boys  to  say  their  lesson  from 
a  written  translation;  but  better  still, 
I  think,  is  the  use  of  English  poetry, 
which  develops  the  memory  easily.  Very 
few  boys  dislike  learning  English,  and  it 
is  a  great  advantage  to  give  boys  a  good 
repertory  of  English  poetry.  The  classi- 
cal repetition  lessons  do  not  remain  in  the 
mind,  and  thus  do  not,  I  think,  justify 
the  reason  which  is  often  given  for  their 
retention — that  the  practice  increases  a 
boy's  vocabulary. 

(2)  Then  comes  the  question  of  the 
work  from  the  master's  point  of  view. 
There  is  a  wise  saying  that  nine- tenths 
of  the  noble  work  done  in  the  world  is 
drudgery,  which  is  often  misused  as  if  it 
meant  that  nine-tenths  of  the  drudgery 
done  in  the  world  is  noble  work.  This 
has  no  semblance  of  truth  in  it.  It  is  of 
course  a  question  for  headmasters,  but  I 
believe  myself  that  the  absolute  drudg- 
ery inseparable  from  teaching  should  be 
reduced  to  a  minimum.    Indeed  I  will  go 


Repetition  47 

further  and  say  that  I  believe  that  it  is 
the  positive  duty  of  a  master  to  save  him- 
self as  far  as  possible  from  unnecessary 
drudgery. 

Of  course  the  principle  could  be  used 
sophistically,  but  I  am  writing  for  con- 
scientious men,  and  I  believe  that  there 
is  a  great  deal  of  Pharisaism  in  the 
matter.  I  have  known  masters  who  have 
so  immersed  themselves  in  the  laborious 
correction  of  exercises  that  they  have 
not  only  lost  all  freshness  of  mind  and 
spirit,  but  have  sacrificed  all  possibility 
of  reading  and  enlarging  their  own  minds 
to  a  kind  of  dull  self-satisfaction  in  the 
amount  of  hours  spent  over  correction  of 
exercises  which  really  was  of  no  benefit 
to  the  boys. 

The  boy  must  of  course  have  his  mis- 
takes pointed  out  to  him,  he  must  feel 
that  his  w^ork  is  vigilantly  reviewed ;  but 
the  moment  that  a  master,  from  a  sense 
of  duty,  luxuriates  in  corrections  which 
do  not  benefit  the  boy,  that  moment  the 
master  is  ceasing  to  do  his  duty.     Of 


48  Work 

course  one  does  not  mean  that  a  master 
should  gain  time  for  amusement  or  physi- 
cal exercise  by  neglecting  his  duty.  But 
no  system  which  tends  to  bring  a  master 
in  mountains  of  unproductive  work  is  a 
good  system. 

For  instance,  it  is  the  way  in  many 
schools  to  let  the  boys  do  a  written 
exercise  in  school,  for  the  master  to  take 
it  away,  and  then  perhaps  some  days  after 
to  return  the  exercise  underlined  and  to 
go  through  it.  Now  this  is  deliberately 
sacrificing  one  of  the  most  active  intellect- 
ual processes  of  the  boyish  mind.  Almost 
all  boys  who  have  been  doing  a  piece  of 
work,  say  Latin  prose  or  translation,  have 
a  kind  of  anxiety  at  the  time  as  to  what 
their  mistakes  have  been,  how  the  passage 
should  be  turned,  and  so  forth.  While 
the  thing  is  hot  in  their  minds  they 
would  really  like  to  know  how  it  should 
be  done;  but  the  lapse  of  a  few  hours 
entirely  chills  their  interest  and  obliter- 
ates their  memory  of  what  they  have 
found  difficult. 


Drudgery  49 

I  believe  that  a  few  minutes  should 
always  be  spent  at  the  end  of  such  a 
lesson  by  the  master  in  going  through 
the  piece  and  requiring  the  boys  as  far 
as  possible  to  understand  their  own  mis- 
takes. He  should  even  say  that  the  mark 
a  boy  gets  will  depend  to  a  certain 
extent  upon  how  far  they  have  detected 
their  own  mistakes.  Then  he  should 
review  the  exercise,  if  possible,  with  the 
boy  beside  him.  It  is  not  a  gain  of  time 
upon  the  other  system,  but  it  is  immensely 
more  valuable,  and  a  master  moreover 
who  cares  about  his  art  has  the  know- 
ledge that  the  boys  are  personally  inter- 
ested in  the  work — and  one  never  grudges 
time  spent  in  work  where  the  boy  is 
actively  interested ;  what  one  does  grudge 
is  the  work  which  is  weariness  to  the 
master  and  unprofitable  for  the  boy. 

Of  course  there  must  be  drudgery,  and 
the  drudgery  is  bound  to  be  great.  Many 
masters  know  that  a  little  bit  of  writing 
work  is  of  infinite  relief  in  the  middle 
of  a  construing  lesson;    to  have  a  few 


50  Work 

lines  written  out  by  the  boys  is  like  re- 
quiring all  of  them  to  construe  a  passage, 
but  a  hard-worked  master  will  often  avoid 
it  because  of  the  labour  involved  in 
looking  over  the  passage  afterwards. 
My  own  belief  is  that  such  a  passage  need 
only  be  cursorily  inspected,  just  to  see 
that  no  boy  has  shirked  the  task.  And 
I  believe  that  we  should  be  content  to  do 
a  good  deal  more  written  work  in  this 
rough  way,  and  that  we  should  find  the 
results  very  valuable. 

The  other  practice,  that  of  being 
obliged  to  scrutinise  all  the  boys'  written 
work  with  minute  care,  is,  I  believe,  a 
survival  from  the  time  when  the  boys 
in  public  schools  did  one  or  two  written 
exercises  in  a  week,  which  were  made  as 
perfect  as  possible;  and  I  believe  that 
still  one  exercise  should  be  treated  in 
that  way,  in  as  literary  a  fashion  as  pos- 
sible, to  give  boys  what  Dr.  Hawtrey 
used  to  call  ''the  sweet  pride  of  author- 
ship," but  that  a  great  deal  more  should 
be  done  roughly  and  easily. 


Correction  5 1 

A  very  great  headmaster,  who  produced 
more  good  scholars  than,  perhaps,  any 
other  teacher,  used,  I  beUeve,  to  be  sin- 
gularly careless  in  looking  over  his  exer- 
cises. Huge  bundles  used  to  accumulate 
on  his  study  table;  he  would  send  for  a 
boy,  take  out  an  exercise  at  random,  and 
give  him  half  an  hour  of  splendid  teach- 
ing. Many  exercises  were  not  looked 
over  at  all,  but  the  boy  had  had  the 
practice  in  doing  them,  whereas  if  the 
headmaster  had  felt  obliged  to  scrutinise 
every  exercise  conscientiously  he  could 
only  have  given  the  boy  a  minute  or 
two  at  the  most  of  rapid  indication  of 
mistakes. 

After  all,  the  improvement  of  the  men- 
tal capacity  of  the  boys  is  the  object,  an 
object  which  many  conscientious  teachers 
are  apt  to  forget  in  the  dreary  satisfaction 
of  performing  mechanical  duties,  as  they 
would  say,  ''in  the  great  Taskmaster's 
eye." 

Again,  I  am  a  great  believer  in  the 
value  of  note-taking  for  boys.     It  helps 


52  Work 

them  to  see  the  point,  to  record  it  rapidly, 
and  moreover  it  acts  as  a  Httle  anchor  to 
the  restless  mind,  which  otherwise  voy- 
ages about  in  very  different  waters;  and 
finally  it  just  relieves  that  slight  physical 
restlessness  which  is  apt  to  beset  boys 
when  sitting  for  an  hour  or  so  without 
anything  particular  to  do  but  to  listen. 
Yet  many  masters  are  deterred  from 
encouraging  the  practice  simply  because 
of  the  enormous  toil  it  imposes  upon 
them  if  they  make  any  attempt  to  look 
over  the  notes.  But  it  is  quite  possible 
to  take  a  few  note-books  at  a  time, 
dip  for  specimens,  and  write  a  little 
criticism  of  an  encouraging  nature,  if 
possible,  for  the  boys'  satisfaction.  More- 
over, it  is  much  more  interesting  work 
than  most  exercises,  because  the  mas- 
ter really  gets  a  peep  into  a  boy's 
mind. 

The  conclusion  is  that  it  is  not  a  self- 
indulgence,  but  a  plain  duty,  for  masters 
to  keep  themselves  fresh  and  active- 
minded;  and  the  spirit  in  which  a  man 


Conclusion  S3 

allows  himself  to  be  carried  helplessly 
down  in  a  stream  of  mechanical  duties 
is  not  only  not  praiseworthy,  but  highly 
reprehensible. 


VI 

INTELLECT 

IT  must  be  frankly  admitted  that  the 
intellectual  standard  maintained  at 
the  English  public  schools  is  low;  and 
what  is  more  serious,  I  do  not  see  any 
evidence  that  it  is  tending  to  become 
higher.  The  subject  of  athletics  will  be 
treated  separately,  but  I  will  here  say  that 
I  have  no  desire  to  attack  the  system  of 
organised  athletics.  Indeed,  the  system 
has  great  and  obvious  merits ;  but  what  I 
plead  for  is  the  co-ordination  of  interests. 
I  honestly  believe  that  the  masters  of 
public  schools  have  two  strong  ambitions 
— to  make  the  boys  good  and  to  make 
them  healthy;  but  I  do  not  think  that 
they  care  about  making  them  intellectual ; 
intellectual  life  is  left  to  take  care  of  it- 
self.    My  belief  is  that  a  great  many 

54 


Intellectual  Ideals  55 

masters  look  upon  the  boys'  work  as  a 
question  of  duty — that  is,  they  consider 
it  from  the  moral  standpoint,  and  not 
from    the    intellectual.     Of    course,    the 
public  schools  must  reflect  to  a  certain 
extent  the  tendencies  of  the  nation;  and 
the  nation  is  certainly  not  preoccupied 
with  intellectual  interests.     The  nation 
appears  to  me  to  be  mainly  preoccupied 
with  two   ambitions:  success,   which   in 
many  cases  is  identical  with  wealth;  and 
manly  conduct,  which  is  a  combination  of 
aptitude  for  outdoor  exercises  with  the 
practice  of  wholesome  virtues.     To  put 
it  in  academical  terms,  the  national  ideal 
seems  to  be  a  mixture  of  the  Hebraistic 
and  the  Spartan  systems — national  pros- 
perity, with  a  certain  standard  of  right 
conduct,  and  physical  prowess.     It  seems 
to  me  that  the  Athenian  ideal — that  of 
strong  intellectual  capacity — is  left  out 
of  sight  altogether.     I  do  not  deny  that 
right  conduct,  national  prosperity,  and 
physical   w^ell-being   are   great   conveni- 
ences, but  I  do  not  see  why  intellectual 


56  Intellect 

strength  should  not  take  its  place  side  by 
side  with  the  others;  and  if  anywhere,  it 
is  in  the  public  schools  of  the  country 
that  the  standard  ought  to  be  maintained. 
I  believe  that  we  have  condescended  far 
too  much  to  the  boy's  ideal  of  life.  The 
boy's  ideal  is  to  be  successful  and  to  be 
strong,  and  accordingly  that  is  what  he  is 
primarily  encouraged  to  be,  so  long  as  he 
is  virtuous. 

So  far  removed  is  the  intellectual  ideal 
from  the  mind  of  the  ordinary  man  that 
it  is  difficult  even  to  write  of  it  without 
being  misunderstood.  It  is  understood  to 
be  a  kind  of  mixture  of  priggishness  and 
pedantry;  it  is  confused  with  learning;  it 
is  supposed  that  the  intellectual  man  is 
the  kind  of  man  who  always  wants  to 
talk  about  books.  The  current  view 
about  intellectual  powers  was  admirably 
summed  up  by  a  friend  of  mine,  who  said, 
speaking  of  a  clever  woman,  '*What  I  like 
about  her  is  that  though  she  is  such  a 
clever  woman,  she  does  not  allow  it  to 
make  her  disagreeable."     The  truth  is 


Intellectual  Life  57 

that  where  an  atmosphere  is  not  intel- 
lectual, it  needs  a  certain  priggishness, 
or  a  certain  consciousness  of  high  aim  and 
worth,  to  talk  resolutely  on  subjects  in 
which  others  are  frankly  not  interested. 

The  aim  ought  not  to  be  to  turn  every- 
one into  a  literary  personage.  Literature 
is  only  one  province  of  the  intellectual 
life.  But  what  should  be  aimed  at  is 
that  people  should  have  interests,  views, 
subjects;  that  indoor  life  should  not  be 
a  series  of  tedious  hours  to  be  beguiled 
with  billiards  or  bridge,  or  with  anticipa- 
tions or  recollections  of  open-air  amuse- 
ments. My  idea  of  an  intellectual  person 
is  one  whose  mind  is  alive  to  ideas;  who 
is  interested  in  politics,  religion,  science, 
history,  literature;  who  knows  enough  to 
wish  to  know  more,  and  to  listen  if  he 
cannot  talk;  a  person  who  is  not  at  the 
mercy  of  a  new  book,  a  leading  article,  or 
the  chatter  of  an  irresponsible  outsider; 
a  person  who  is  not  insular,  provincial, 
narrow-minded,  contemptuous. 

My  own  belief  is  that  a  good  many 


58  Intellect 

young  boys  have  the  germ  of  intellectual 
life  in  them,  but  that  in  many  cases  it  dies 
a  natural  death  from  mere  inanition. 
They  find  themselves  in  a  society  like  a 
public  school,  where  their  path  in  life  is 
clearly  indicated  and  where  public  feeling 
is  very  urgent  and  very  precise.  They 
find  that  they  have  a  good  deal  of  work 
to  do,  to  which  no  particular  intellectual 
interest  attaches.  Out  of  school  there  are 
games  and  talk  about  games;  and  unless 
a  boy  is  very  keenly  interested  in  intel- 
lectual things,  his  interest  is  not  likely 
to  survive  in  an  atmosphere  which  is  all 
alive,  indeed,  but  where  intellectual  things 
are,  to  put  it  frankly,  unfashionable.  If 
his  home  is  one  where  intellect  is  valued, 
he  has  a  fair  chance  of  keeping  interest 
up  in  a  timid  and  secluded  way. 

The  question  of  how  to  alter  this  is  a 
difficult  one.  It  can  hardly  be  done 
by  definite  organisations  such  as  societies, 
because  the  boys  have  already  so  many 
engagements  that  a  new  one  is  apt  to 
degenerate  into  a  bore.   Good  lectures  can 


Interest  59 

do  a  little;  a  good  library  can  do  a  little; 
but,  so  far  as  schools  can  influence  na- 
tional tendency  at  all,  I  believe  that  the 
only  way  is  for  the  masters  to  be  inter- 
ested themselves.  If  a  man  is  really 
alive  to  what  is  going  on,  if  he  reads  the 
papers,  if  he  reads  books,  if  he  uses  his 
holidays  wisely  in  travel,  reading,  and 
the  society  of  interesting  people,  it  is 
impossible  that  the  boys  who  come  under 
his  influence,  considering  how  extraor- 
dinarily imitative  boys  are,  should  not 
be  affected  by  this  in  some  degree. 

I  remember  well  being  decidedly  in- 
fluenced as  a  boy  by  a  man  of  the  kind 
that  I  have  described.  He  had  a  certain 
magnetic  gift,  I  imagine;  but  his  allusions 
to  literature  and  history  seemed  to  open 
doors  into  all  sorts  of  roomy  and  spacious 
corridors.  It  used  to  seem  to  me,  and  it 
was  so  with  others,  that  he  lived  habitu- 
ally in  a  world  that  was  bigger,  brighter, 
more  entertaining  than  the  ordinary 
world.  The  man  was  no  prig — he  never 
hinted  contempt  for  people  who  did  not 


6o  Intellect 

care  about  his  own  subjects;  he  merely 
brought,  like  the  wise  householder,  out 
of  his  treasure  things  new  and  old;  and 
many  boys  felt  that  they  would  like  to 
have  similar  treasures  in  the  background 
too. 

Therefore  I  maintain  that  it  is  not  an 
advisable  thing  so  much  as  a  positive  duty 
for  teachers  to  contrive  some  intellectual 
life  for  themselves ;  to  live  in  the  company 
of  good  books  and  big  ideas.  Everyone 
cannot  be  interested  in  everything,  but 
everyone  is  capable  of  being  interested 
in  something;  and  I  do  not  very  much 
care  what  the  subject  is  provided  only 
that  there  is  a  little  glow,  a  little  enthu- 
siasm about  it. 

Let  me  mention  a  little  educational 
experiment  which  I  have  tried  with  con- 
siderable effect,  both  as  evidence  that  the 
intellectual  interest  is  stronger  than  is 
often  imagined,  and  also  that  it  is  possible 
to  stimulate  it  without  travelling  beyond 
the  bounds  of  normal  work.  I  have  added, 
as  a  rule,  to  a  written  exercise  called 


Literary  Interest  6i 

History  Questions  a  voluntary  question 
connected  with  the  history  we  are  doing 
in  school.  I  have  taken,  for  instance,  the 
conspiracy  of  Catiline,  and  I  have  told 
any  boys  who  care  to  attempt  it,  to  treat 
it  exactly  as  they  like — as  a  letter  from 
a  conspirator  describing  a  meeting,  as  a 
fragment  from  a  narrative  poem,  as  a 
dramatic  scene — whatever  they  prefer. 
The  result  has  been  that  in  a  very  normal 
class  of  thirty  boys  I  have  found  week 
after  week  some  eight  or  ten  of  these 
answers  attempted.  One  boy  has  treated 
it  comically  (not  always  humorously) 
in  the  style  of  the  Bab  Ballads;  another 
has  written  a  fragment  of  a  play ;  another 
has  attempted  a  passage  in  the  style  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott;  another  has  written  a 
letter;  others  have  attempted  to  describe 
the  scene  of  a  meeting  of  conspirators 
in  the  style  of  Harrison  Ainsworth.  I 
contrive  to  read  these  attempts  through 
with  the  boys,  criticise  them  seriously, 
make  respectful  suggestions;  and  I  have 
no  sort  of  doubt  that  they  are  keenly 


62  Intellect 

interested  in  and  think  more  of  this  than 
perhaps  of  any  other  school  exercise.  It 
leads  to  no  neglect  of  work ;  but  neither 
is  it  only  the  successful  workers  who  are 
the  best  performers.  My  best  lyrical 
poet  once  was  a  boy  who  could  scarcely 
get  through  a  piece  of  Latin  prose  without 
a  huge  crop  of  blunders,  but  who  wrote 
flowing  and  spirited  English  lyrics  with 
lively  satisfaction.  It  is  ridiculous  to 
pretend  that  this  is  not  good  for  the  boys; 
it  only  shows  how  starved  a  curriculum 
it  is  that  does  not  provide  some  pabulum 
for  the  literary  interest  that  is  latent  in 
far  more  minds  than  is  generally  supposed. 
The  classicists  who  argue  strenuously 
for  the  retention  of  Greek  in  schools  use 
as  one  of  their  strongest  claims  that  the 
Greek  is  so  august  a  literature.  I  agree, 
with  reservations.  But  I  also  maintain 
that  a  very  small  percentage  of  the  boys 
who  do  Greek  ever  get  within  measur- 
able distance  of  appreciating  it  as  litera- 
ture, and  that  yet  among  those  very  boys 
there  are  many  who  are  capable  of  appre- 


Intellectual  Enjoyment        63 

ciating  style  and  treatment  in  their  own 
language.    I  am  not  a  great  advocate  of 
using  English  literature  in  school  for  text- 
books.    The  treatment  of  literature  by 
commentators  is,  as  a  rule,  so  profoundly 
unintelligent  that  I  should  be  sorry  to  see 
it  reduced  to  a  subject.    Neither  do  I  at 
all  desire  that  intellectual  stimulus  should 
be  the  only  thing  aimed  at.     It  tends  to 
make  a  mind  loose,  flabby,  and  dilettante. 
The  mind  should  be  exercised  on  work 
which  requires  grip  and  assiduity,  but  de- 
liberately to  omit  intellectual  enjoyment 
from  our  programme,  to  pass  over  one  of 
the  strongest  of  boyish  faculties,  seems  to 
me  the  kind  of  mistake  that  will  be  re- 
garded some  years  hence  as  both  pitiable 
and  ludicrous.    We  should  never  expect  a 
boy  to  become  a  good  player  at  any  game 
unless  he  enjoyed  it,  and  how  we  dare  to 
exclude  enjoyment  so  rigorously  from  our 
system  of  education  is  one  of  those  mys- 
teries that  it  is  difficult  to  fathom.    The 
result  is  that  we  send  out  from  our  public 
schools  year  after  year  many  boys  who 


64  Intellect 

hate  knowledge  and  think  books  dreary, 
who  are  perfectly  self-satisfied  and  en- 
tirely ignorant,  and,  what  is  worse,  not 
ignorant  in  a  wholesome  and  humble 
manner,  but  arrogantly  and  contemp- 
tuously ignorant — not  only  satisfied  to 
be  so,  but  thinking  it  ridiculous  and 
almost  unmanly  that  a  young  man  should 
be  anything  else. 


VII 

ORIGINALITY 

TT  has  been  said  that  the  public  school 
*  system  is  built  upon  conventions,  and 
that  it  is  a  foe  to  all  originality.  I  must 
respectfully  claim  to  disagree.  Such 
originality  as  is  extinguished  by  conven- 
tions is  not  of  a  very  high  order.  The 
only  originality  that  is  worth  having  is 
that  of  the  mind  and  heart,  and  I  doubt 
whether  that  is  ever  extinguished  by 
superficial  conventionalities.  I  agree  that 
the  public  school  tends  to  develop  a 
certain  type  of  character,  but  it  is  a  type 
above  the  average,  and  I  believe  it  raises 
more  characters  to  its  level  than  it  de- 
presses characters  down  to  it.  Public 
opinion  in  schools  is  apt  to  be  very  tyran- 
nical in  small  details  such  as  dress  and 
deportment,  and  this,  I  think,  is  a  distinct 

5  6s 


66  Originality 

advantage,  because  the  standard  it  de- 
mands of  dress  is  decent,  and  of  deport- 
ment is  manly.  And  no  one  is  the  worse, 
however  original  his  mind  may  be,  for 
dressing  and  behaving  like  a  gentleman. 
Anyone  whose  originality  is  confined  to 
eccentricity  in  dress  and  demeanour  is 
simply  a  foolish  poseur,  and  I  should  look 
upon  the  public  school  standard  in  this 
respect  as  an  excellent  discipline.  In  such 
matters  conventionality  is  a  mere  relief, 
because  questions  of  dress  and  deport- 
ment become  simply  mechanical  and 
habitual,  and  leave  the  mind  free  to 
concern  itself  with  other  matters. 

The  question  whether  athletics,  as  prac- 
tised at  public  schools,  have  a  cramping 
effect  on  development  will  be  considered 
more  in  detail  under  the  head  of  athletics, 
and  so  I  will  merely  say  here  that  though 
athletic  ambitions  are  temporarily  apt  to 
be  rather  absorbing,  and  tend  to  assume 
exaggerated  proportions  in  the  case  of 
boys  whose  intellectual  outfit  is  small  and 
whose  minds  are  naturally  rather  narrow, 


Intellectual  Sympathy  67 

I  do  not  believe  that  they  disturb  the 
equilibrium  of  minds  which  are  at  all 
above  the  average;  indeed,  I  would  go 
further  and  say  that  they  tend  to  have 
a  wholesome  effect  on  boys  whose  minds 
are  highly  developed,  and,  if  anything, 
maintain  the  balance  of  physical  sanity 
rather  than  destroy  it.  Boys  whose  minds 
are  precocious  or  prematurely  developed 
are  apt  to  look  upon  exercise  as  a  tire- 
some interference  with  their  own  pursuits, 
and  I  believe  that  it  does  distinct  good  in 
enabling  them  to  give  due  weight  to  the 
necessity  of  keeping  the  body  in  good 
condition,  a  lesson  which  is  apt  to  be 
taught  those  who  slight  it  in  early  life  by 
premature  infirmities. 

There  remains  then  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  view  of  intellectual  and 
ethical  things  which  prevails  in  schools 
has  a  cramping  effect  on  the  original 
minds  that  come  within  its  influence,  and 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  has  very 
little,  simply  because  it  is  mostly  nega- 
tive.    I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  a  very 


68  Originality 

strong  intellectual  or  spiritual  influence 
exerted  upon  immature  minds  is  not  in 
itself  more  cramping  than  none  at  all, 
because  the  mind  is  run  into  a  certain 
mould  at  a  time  when  impressions  are 
very   permanent,    and    before    sufficient 
independence  of  character  has  been  ar- 
rived at  for  the  mind  to  exert  its  critical 
faculties  at  all.    I  do  not  think  that  a  boy 
at  a  public  school  gets  much  sympathy  in 
his  intellectual  ambition  or  his  spiritual 
emotions;    but  I  do  not  think  it  very 
desirable  that  he  should,  because  the  time 
has  not  really  come  for  their  develop- 
ment.   Such  sympathy  as  is  useful  to  him 
should  be  secret  and  occasional  rather 
than  open  and  constant;    and  I  should 
look  with  great  anxiety  on  the  future  of 
the  boys  of  a  school  who  lived  at  high 
pressure  intellectually  and  emotionally. 
The  independence  allowed  to  a  boy  of  any 
originality    is    considerable,    and    other 
boys  trouble  themselves  very  little  what  a 
boy  thinks  of  or  dreams  about  so  long  as 
in  his  appearance  and  behaviour  he  shows 


Indifference  69 

a  decent  compliance  with  conventional 
things. 

The  question  here  is  rather  what  a 
master's  attitude  should  be  in  the  mat- 
ter; and  here  I  confess  that  schools  are 
rather  at  fault.  A  master  must,  of 
course,  show  a  similarly  decent  compli- 
ance with  conventional  standards;  he 
must  be  interested  and  express  interest 
in  games,  and  he  must  not  despise  the 
day  of  small  things,  the  homely  interests 
and  events  of  school  life,  otherwise  he  will 
simply  forfeit  sympathy.  But  I  think 
that  it  is  a  great  misfortune  and  mistake 
if  the  boys  think  that  a  master's  horizon 
of  thought  is  exactly  the  same  as  their 
own,  if  they  imagine  that  he  is  preoccu- 
pied with  the  question  of  who  is  to  be  in 
the  school  Eleven,  or  the  precise  nuances 
in  the  play  of  the  school  Forwards. 

Again,  a  master  should  be  very  quick 
to  notice  any  originality  of  tastes  or 
interests  among  his  boys,  and  be  ready 
to  sympathise  or  help.  He  should  be 
able  to  take  an  interest  in  what  a  boy 


70  Originality 

reads  or  dreams  or  thinks  about ;  he  should 
be  able  to  speak  on  occasion  of  spiritual 
things  without  affectation,  and  at  the 
same  time  without  embarrassment.  I 
do  not  mean  that  any  good  can  be  done 
by  a  man  pretending  to  have  felt  or 
thought  deeply  on  matters  in  which  he  is 
indifferent,  but  I  would  contend  that  a 
professed  teacher  has  no  business  to  be 
indifferent,  and  that  a  master  without 
some  intellectual  and  spiritual  ideal  is  as 
much  out  of  place  as  a  doctor  without 
sympathy,  or  a  clergyman  who  despised 
religion.  And  here  comes  the  difficulty. 
A  man  may  conscientiously  take  a  master- 
ship in  order  to  teach  a  certain  subject,  if 
he  knows  his  subject  and  is  a  competent 
disciplinarian.  But  I  do  not  think  that 
anyone  has  any  business  to  enter  upon 
tutorial  relations  unless  he  has  got  some 
definite  intellectual  views,  and  is  living  an 
intellectual  life  of  his  own ;  or  a  boarding- 
house,  unless  he  has  some  intention  of 
exerting  influence  in  the  right  direction. 
I  shall  propose  to  discuss  the  question  of 


Enthusiasm  71 

religion  later,  but  I  am  quite  sure  it  is  no 
more  right  to  take  a  boarding-house  for 
the  sake  of  the  profits  and  the  position 
than  it  is  for  a  clergyman  to  accept  a 
living  on  the  same  grounds.  Here  I 
am  convinced  that  some  sense  of  vocation 
is  an  absolute  necessity. 

A  master  then  who  holds  the  position 
of  tutor  or  housemaster  should  be  care- 
fully on  the  look  out  for  signs  of  originality 
and  definite  bias  among  the  boys,  and  do 
his  best,  like  the  man  in  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  secretly  to  cast  oil  upon  the 
fire.  He  should  try  to  see  that  every 
boy  has  some  subject  at  least  in  which  he 
is  interested,  and  he  shoiild  try  to  make 
it  easy  for  every  boy  to  pursue  that  sub- 
ject, rather  than  to  try  to  conform  all  his 
boys  to  the  usual  type,  or  to  bring  them 
under  the  subject  in  which  he  himself 
happens  to  be  interested.  The  curricu- 
lum nowadays  of  a  public  school  is  a 
varied  one,  and  where  classics,  science, 
history,  mathematics,  and  modem  lan- 
guages are  taught  it  is  hard  to  say  that 


72  Originality 

any  boy's  powers  are  doomed  to  starva- 
tion. At  the  same  time  it  is  certain  that 
a  great  many  of  these  subjects  are  not 
taught  in  a  stimulating  way,  and  that 
a  good  many  teachers  do  their  duty 
conscientiously,  but  without  any  par- 
ticular enthusiasm.  Nevertheless,  in  a 
staff  of  masters  there  are  sure  to  be  en- 
thusiasts in  every  branch,  and  a  tutor 
should  endeavour  to  encourage  relations 
between  his  boys  who  are  interested  in  the 
subjects  and  the  men  who  are  interested 
in  them  too.  Of  course  time  is  the  peren- 
nial difficulty.  The  system  must  be  all- 
embracing,  and  my  own  experience  of  a 
public  school  master's  life  is  that  there  is 
practically  very  little  time  when  relations 
with  boys  other  than  those  with  whom 
some  official  connection  exists  can  be 
cultivated  at  all.  I  believe  that  if  a 
man  does  his  work  thoroughly  at  a 
public  school,  sees  a  certain  amount  of 
his  colleagues  socially — which  is  abso- 
lutely essential  to  general  harmony — and 
does  a  little  independent  intellectual  work 


Reflection  73 

of  his  own,  the  residue  of  time  that  is  left 
is  very  small  indeed;  and  this  I  think 
is  an  almost  inevitable  evil,  and  can  only 
be  met  by  those  in  authority  resolutely 
diminishing  all  work  that  is  unprofitable 
from  the  master's  point  of  view.  The 
great  lack  in  a  schoolmaster's  life  is  time 
for  recollection  and  repose.  He  spins 
along  like  a  busy  top  from  morning  to 
night,  and  it  is  easy  to  think  that  if  you 
have  spun  and  buzzed  through  the  hours 
you  have  done  your  duty  in  a  weary  way ; 
but  there  is  very  little  of  the  feeding  in 
green  pastures  and  leading  forth  beside 
the  waters  of  comfort,  and  the  result  is 
that  we  consider  our  problems  hastily  and 
scantily;  we  consider  prompt  action  in- 
variably better  than  quiet  reflection. 
And  indeed  we  have  most  of  us  time  to 
do  the  one  and  no  time  at  all  to  do  the 
other. 


VIII 
PRAISE 

THERE  is  one  potent  educational 
force  which  is  often  neglected  by 
our  educators — the  power  of  praise.  As 
a  rule,  it  goes  against  the  grain  in  English- 
men to  praise,  generously  and  out- 
spokenly. They  call  it  ''paying  com- 
pliments," and  mix  it  up  with  insincerity. 
There  is  a  foolish  old  proverb,  which 
represents  the  surliness  of  grim  genera- 
tions of  Englishmen,  that  ''Fine  words 
butter  no  parsnips. ' '  It  is  entirely  untrue ; 
just  as  love  can  give  a  savour  to  a  dinner 
of  herbs,  so  praise,  judicious  and  sincere 
praise,  can  make  boys  contented  with 
simple  and  Spartan  fare.  Of  course,  it 
must  not  be  all  praise;  but  a  school- 
master who  can  find  fault  sharply  and 
seriously,    and    can   at   the   same   time 

74 


Appreciation  75 

praise  frankly,  has  a  great  power  in 
his  hands.  And  I  think  that  school- 
masters should  resolutely  overcome  their 
British  dislike  to  express  appreciation. 
To  tell  a  division  of  boys  who  have  been 
working  briskly  and  good-humouredly 
that  they  have  done  so,  is  far  more  likely 
to  keep  them  brisk  and  good-humoured 
than  to  grumble  at  the  first  and  natural 
signs  of  inattention.  To  praise  diligence, 
to  find  words  of  appreciation  for  a  thought- 
ful piece  of  work,  is  far  more  likely  to 
produce  further  diligence  than  to  be 
critical  and  cold. 

A  lady  of  my  acquaintance  once  kept 
a  party  of  Rural  Deans  happy  and  amused 
for  an  hour  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
asking  them  what  was  the  greatest  com- 
pliment they  had  ever  been  paid.  Most  of 
the  party,  it  is  true,  said  that  it  was  when 
their  wives  did  them  the  honour  to  accept 
them,  but  this  sacrifice  paid  to  marital 
duty  they  expanded  in  easy  egotism.  Is 
it  not  the  experience  of  everyone  that 
compliments  live  far  longer  in  the  memory 


76  Praise 

than  criticism  ?  The  normal  human  being 
explains  criticism  away  by  reflecting  that 
the  critic  is  only  imperfectly  acquainted 
with  the  conditions;  but  with  compli- 
ments one  instinctively  feels  that  the 
speaker  has  true  insight  into  the  situation. 
This  leads  me  to  a  very  important  part 
of  the  schoolmaster^s  duty — that  of  writ- 
ing reports.  I  declare  I  have  often  been 
ashamed  to  see  how  these  hasty  and  ill- 
considered  documents  are  stored  in  family 
treasuries,  and  become  part  of  the  ar- 
chives of  a  house.  I  believe  that  the 
greatest  possible  care  is  well  repaid  in  this 
somewhat  distasteful  duty.  It  is  the 
schoolmaster's  business  to  do  the  boy 
full  justice,  not  merely  to  indulge  in  criti- 
cism. If  a  due  proportion  of  credit, 
where  credit  is  due,  is  intermingled,  the 
arrows,  tipped  with  honey,  are  gratefully 
received.  Most  parents  do  not  want  elab- 
orate details  of  the  work.  They  want  to 
be  assured  that  the  boy  has  tried  to  do 
his  duty,  they  want  the  impression  that 
the  boy  has  made  upon  the  master. 


Reports  77 

Still  more  important  is  the  letter  that 
the    housemaster    should    write    to    the 
parents  at  the  end  of  each  half.    I  grudge 
no  time  and  labour  spent  over  this.    Of 
course  it  seems  tiresome  to  say  the  same 
kind  of  things  over  and  over  again.    But 
if  the  master  knows  the  boy  and  cares 
for  him,  his  view  will  insensibly  alter  year 
by  year,  and  a  master  should  try  to  put  a 
graphic  picture  of  the  boy  on  paper  each 
half.      Of   course   this   comes   easier   to 
some  men  than  others.     But  I  believe 
that  the  seed  thus  sown  is  apt  to  be  very 
fruitful  indeed.     All  attempt  at  literary 
smartness  should  be  avoided,  and  espec- 
ially all  sarcasm.    Parents  are  apt  to  feel 
such  things  acutely,  and  to  resent  any 
summary  criticism  of  a  boy.     Thus   a 
parent  once  wrote  to  a  friend  of  mine 
about  a  report  to  which  several  masters 
had  contributed:    ''The  gentleman  who 
writes  in  red  ink  and  signs  himself  G.  F. 
seems  to  have  lost  his  temper."    Again, 
a  report  from  a  master  which  said,   ''  I 
can  teach  the  boy  nothing,"  drew  from 


78  Praise 

an  indignant  parent  a  letter  to  the  head- 
master remonstrating  with  him  for  re- 
taining on  the  staff  a  man  "who  by  his 
own  confession  is  incapable  of  communi- 
cating the  simplest  knowledge  to  the 
boys." 

Parents  are  naturally  partial,  but  they 
do  not  resent  criticism  if  it  is  part  of  a 
sincere  attempt  to  understand  and  to 
describe  the  boy.  Indeed,  they  are  often 
very  grateful  for  it. 


IX 
THE  BOARDING-HOUSE 

IT  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  as  far 
as  possible  the  school  should  be  con- 
structed on  the  basis  of  the  home,  and 
that  there  should  be,  if  possible,  a  home 
side  to  school  Hfe;  and  therefore  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  schoolmasters 
should  be  celibates,  or  rather  that  house- 
masters should  be,  though  this  may  ap- 
pear at  first  sight  paradoxical.  It  is, 
however,  in  any  case,  a  counsel  of  per- 
fection, and  cannot  be  seriously  urged, 
though  it  is  only  too  sadly  plain  what 
havoc  the  suspension  of  the  celibate 
rule  has  worked  in  the  Universities. 

The  celibate  housemaster  has  several 
obvious  advantages.  In  the  first  place, 
he  is  free  from  domestic  cares  to  a  great 
extent;    he  is  not  obliged  to  regard  his 

79 


8o  The  Boarding-House 

profession  primarily  as  a  money-making 
concern.  Then,  too,  he  has  no  domestic 
ties  and  can  bestow  his  time  and  his 
interest  wholly  on  his  boys.  The  paternal 
instinct  is  strongly  developed  in  many 
men  who  have  no  experience  of  paternity ; 
and  the  married  man  with  a  wife  and 
children  is  bound  both  by  instinct  and 
necessity  to  give  the  best  of  his  heart 
to  his  family.  Most  men  have  only  a 
limited  capacity  for  affection,  and  if 
this  is  absorbed  by  the  nearer  domestic 
circle  it  cannot  overflow  among  the 
boys. 

The  golden  rule  for  the  housemaster  is 
to  have  unlimited  affection  and  no  senti- 
mentality. Of  course,  some  boys  will 
inevitably  be  more  interesting  than  others, 
and  it  is  a  difflcult  matter  to  proffer  in- 
terest constantly  to  boys  who  reply  in 
monosyllables,  who  never  ask  a  question 
or  originate  a  remark,  and  who  are 
obviously  bored  by  any  relations  with  a 
master  apart  from  official  duties.  But 
there  are  very  few  boys  of  this  type ;  and 


Friendliness  8i 

I  can  only  say  that  I  have  very  seldom 
found  a  boy  who  is  not  in  some  way 
interesting  if  you  can  get  on  the  right 
side  of  him.  Most  boys  are  interested 
in  themselves,  and  very  few  boys  can 
resist  the  charm  of  finding  themselves 
interesting  to  another. 

The  root  of  the  matter  is  to  let  a  boy 
understand  from  the  very  first  that  friend- 
ship is  intended  and  offered;  and  it  is 
not  enough  to  be  vaguely  friendly;  it  is 
better  to  tell  a  new  boy  when  he  comes 
that  you  desire  that  he  will  not  merely 
look  upon  you  as  a  master,  but  will  really 
believe  that  you  are  a  friend.  This  is 
to  most  new  boys,  coming  timidly  to  a 
new  place,  peopled  by  vague  ogres,  an 
immense  relief;  and  it  is  interesting  to 
compare  the  change  in  the  glance  of  a 
new  boy  from  the  time  when  he  enters 
your  study  in  the  charge  of  a  parent,  and 
gazes  with  wonder  and  dismay  at  the  man 
who  is  to  rule  his  life  for  several  years, 
with  the  glance  of  shy  friendliness  with 
which    he    meets    you    when    you    have 


82  The  Boarding-House 

indicated   plainly   that    friendship   is   to 
be  the  basis  of  your  relations. 

After  that  time  it  is  mainly  a  matter 
of  idiosyncrasy;  the  thing  is  made  com- 
paratively easy  at  my  own  school,  where 
the  boys  have  separate  rooms  and  where 
it  is  the  custom  for  the  housemaster  to  go 
round  after  prayers  to  see  the  boys  until 
the  lights  are  out.  This  is  a  duty  I  never 
curtail,  probably  because  it  is  a  pleasure, 
though  it  is  a  time  that  is  apt  to  be 
chosen  for  meetings,  and  though  it  is 
sometimes  a  temptation  to  return  to  other 
work.  But  I  attach  the  greatest  import- 
ance to  these  visits.  You  see  the  boy  at 
his  best  and  cheerfullest.  The  day  is 
over,  and  he  is  generally  in  his  most 
expansive  mood.  Conversation  is  never 
difficult — a  book,  a  picture,  an  event 
of  the  day  provide  an  opening — and  most 
boys  are  ready  to  talk  freely  when  they 
are  not  in  the  critical  presence  of  their 
equals.  I  try  too  to  make  the  talk  as  un- 
official as  possible,  and  never  to  scold  or 
talk  about  work;  but  on  the  other  hand, 


Conversation  S^ 

if  any  serious  thing  has  occurred,  it  is 
easy  then  to  say  a  few  friendly  words 
about  it. 

Of  course  the  time  is  limited,  and  it  is 
a  temptation  to  stay  longer  with  boys  who 
are  bursting  with  questions  and  informa- 
tion. But  to  contrive  to  see  all  the  boys 
alone  for  a  minute  or  two  is  possible,  and 
it  is,  I  believe,  one  of  the  most  valuable 
pieces  of  work  that  one  can  do.  How 
this  can  be  done  in  the  schools  with  the 
dormitory  system  it  is  hard  to  say,  but  it 
ought  to  be  schemed  for.  It  is  not  at  all 
the  same  thing  to  send  for  a  succession  of 
boys  to  the  study,  however  easy  may  be 
the  talk  when  they  get  there,  because  a 
boy  is  apt  to  feel  that  there  must  be 
trouble  brewing.  I  suppose  that  having 
boys  in  quietly  to  meals  would  be  a  sub- 
stitute; but  the  brief  morning  meal  with 
letters  and  the  paper  is  not  very  sociable. 
Besides,  the  essence  of  the  situation  is 
that  the  boy  is  in  his  own  stronghold,  and 
has  not  to  assume  company  manners. 

I  generally  stroll  into  the  house  in  the 


84  The  Boarding-House 

course  of  the  long  evenings  for  a  few 
minutes;  but  that  is  a  different  kind  of 
thing,  because  then  boys  are  apt  to  be 
congregated  together,  and  the  conversa- 
tion has  to  be  general  and  of  a  supposed 
humorous  nature. 

In  any  case  the  relations  should  be 
paternal  and  not  sentimental.  It  is  the 
temptation  of  some  men,  and  especially 
of  celibates,  to  feel  a  kind  of  tenderness 
for  what  is  young  and  bright  and  attract- 
ive; but  boys  are  quick  to  notice  and 
resent  any  favouritism,  and  one  of  the 
first  resolves  a  master  must  make  is  to 
be  scrupulously  just.  No  boy  resents  a 
master  seeing  rather  more  of  brisk  and 
lively  boys,  if  they  are  certain  that  their 
brisk  companions  will  not  gain  any  official 
advantages  by  private  friendship.  Affec- 
tion of  an  elderly  and  sensible  kind  is 
intensely  appreciated,  and  very  few  boys 
will  risk  a  collision  with  a  master  if  it 
means  a  rupture  of  pleasant  relations. 

As  the  boys  get  older  it  is  important 
to  remember  that  there  should   be  an 


Respect  85 

increase  of  respectfulness  imported  into 
the  manner  of  a  schoolmaster,  and  that 
they  should  be  addressed  as  equals.  A 
course  of  action,  the  exercise  of  discipline 
should  be  carefully  explained  to  upper 
boys,  and  it  is  as  well  if  anything  serious 
has  occurred  to  take  the  elder  boys 
entirely  into  your  confidence  and  talk 
about  your  desires  and  difficulties  as  you 
would  discuss  them  with  elder  sons. 
Nothing  is  so  valued  by  the  young  as 
respect;  and  any  approach  to  confidence 
on  the  part  of  a  master  in  matters  where 
he  feels  and  thinks  seriously  is  deeply 
valued  and  respected. 

Of  course  discretion  must  be  used  as 
to  what  is  told  to  boys;  they  cannot  as 
a  rule  keep  secrets,  even  when  it  is  to 
their  own  disadvantage  that  they  should 
be  known,  but  about  any  matter  that  it 
is  wise  to  tell  them  the  utmost  frankness 
of  speech  is  advisable.  I  do  not  think 
it  is  wise  to  put  too  much  active  responsi- 
bility into  their  hands,  but  that  they 
should  feel  some  responsibility  is  entirely 


86  The  Boarding-House 

good.  Of  course  in  intercourse  with  boys 
a  good  deal  of  tact  is  necessary;  any 
approach  to  a  liberty  must  be  checked, 
and  can  easily  be  checked  by  telling  a 
boy  that  his  attitude  is  no  doubt  meant 
for  friendliness,  but  that  familiarity  is  no 
compliment,  and  that  you  do  not  desire 
that  goodwill  should  take  that  form  of 
easiness. 

Let  me  give  a  very  minute  instance 
of  an  incident  where  frankness  on  the 
part  of  a  master  was  entirely  successful. 
A  friend  of  mine  was  accustomed  to  give 
the  boys  a  cup  of  tea  and  a  biscuit  before 
early  school.  One  day  another  species 
of  biscuit  was  substituted,  and  was  re- 
ceived with  disfavour  and  rejected;  the 
unhappy  biscuits  were  thrown  about,  and 
the  boys  loudly  complained  to  the  servants 
and  each  other  that  they  had  nothing  fit 
to  eat.  A  rigid  man  would  have  made 
a  fuss,  punished  the  offenders,  and  prob- 
ably insisted  on  the  unpopular  biscuits 
being  eaten.  But  my  friend  sent  for  the 
majority   of   the   boys,    and   told   them 


Frankness  87 

plainly  that  the  particular  meal  was  not 
in  the  school  dietary,  but  entirely  of  his 
own  providing.  He  said  that  it  was  paid 
for  entirely  out  of  his  own  pocket,  and 
that  it  was  as  bad  taste  to  behave  as 
they  had  done  as  if  they  had  been  invited 
to  a  meal  by  a  friend  and  had  done  the 
same  thing.  He  then  said  that  he  had 
ordered  the  original  biscuit  to  be  restored. 
All  this  was  said  good-humouredly,  but 
plainly.  The  result  was  that  not  only 
was  there  no  diminution  of  friendliness, 
but  that  two  upper  boys  came  to  him 
as  a  deputation  and  said  that  it  was 
the  general  wish  that  the  despised  biscuit 
should  be  retained. 

Another  requisite  is  courtesy  in  dealing 
with  boys.  That  is  to  a  great  extent 
a  question  of  manner,  but  it  can  be 
sedulously  practised  and  is  never  thrown 
away.  Of  course  it  should  be  natural 
and  not  elaborate.  But  the  real  secret 
of  satisfactory  relations  with  boys  is  after 
all  to  study  the  individual,  and  to  adapt 
yourself  accordingly.    It  is  a  pity  to  treat 


88  The  Boarding-House 

all  boys  alike  and  in  a  professional 
manner.  The  more  you  know  of  a  boy, 
of  his  home,  of  his  relations  and  himself, 
the  easier  does  a  friendly  understanding 
become.  It  is  as  well,  too,  to  get  the 
fullest  possible  account  of  new  boys  from 
their  private-school  masters,  and  I  have 
always  found  the  latter  most  ready  and 
willing  to  give  all  the  assistance  in  their 
power.  Again,  it  is  of  infinite  import- 
ance that  the  boy  should  feel  that  you 
are  on  easy  terms  with  his  parents,  and 
it  is  as  important  to  cultivate  relations 
with  the  parents  as  with  the  boys.  No 
doubt  parents  and  boys  discuss  the  char- 
acteristics of  their  master,  and  if  the 
parents  of  a  boy  speak  of  the  boy's  house- 
master with  friendliness  and  respect,  the 
boy  transfers  the  master  into  the  family 
circle,  and  then  the  master  can  adopt  the 
position  wTiich  is  the  best  in  every  way — 
that  of  a  relation,  whose  affection  is  of  a 
paternal  character  and  undoubted,  and 
whose  authority  is  unquestioned. 

Perhaps  a  few  words  may  here  be  said 


Parents  89 

upon  the  relations  between  a  parent  and 
a  schoolmaster;  the  only  satisfactory 
basis  is  that  of  mutual  confidence,  tem- 
pered by  discretion.  The  dangers  which 
tend  to  make  the  relations  difficult  are 
twofold.  A  parent  has  very  often  a  not 
unnatural  mistrust  of  a  schoolmaster,  or, 
to  put  it  more  delicately,  he  has  not  full 
confidence  in  the  schoolmaster's  discre- 
tion. He  feels  that  if  he  talks  freely,  the 
schoolmaster  may  use  what  he  says  for 
disciplinary  purposes,  and  that  his  boy 
may  eventually  be  placed  in  a  disagreeable 
position.  The  fear  that  a  schoolmaster 
will  act  inconsiderately  and  incriminate 
a  boy,  who  will  thereupon  be  ostracised 
by  other  boys,  will  often  keep  a  parent 
silent  when  he  ought  to  speak ;  and  it  may 
frankly  be  admitted  that  schoolmasters 
are  not  always  discreet  in  this  matter. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  schoolmaster  is 
often  in  a  somewhat  difficult  position, 
because  he  is  in  the  position  of  a  Tribune, 
has  to  try  and  see  that  equal  justice  is 
done  to  all  the  boys  under  his  care,  and 


90  The  Boarding-Housc 

can  hardly  let  an  evil  alone  of  which  he 
knows.  Yet,  after  all,  where  both  a 
parent  and  a  master  sincerely  desire  the 
good  of  the  boy,  there  is  not  likely  to  be 
any  very  serious  difference  of  opinion. 

The  only  attitude  on  the  part  of  a 
parent  which  is  frankly  to  be  deplored  is 
when  he  takes  the  line  that  the  boy  is  sent 
to  school  to  be  taught  what  is  necessary, 
to  be  kept  respectable  or  even  made 
creditable ;  that  this  is  the  schoolmaster's 
business,  and  that  he  is  not  bound  to  give 
any  assistance  himself  in  the  matter. 
Such  a  parent  perhaps  indulges  the  boy 
in  small  things,  such  as  smoking  or  the 
unrestricted  use  of  wine,  which,  if  not 
undesirable  for  boys  in  themselves,  are  at 
any  rate  deliberately  excluded  from  the 
system  of  public  schools.  He  laughs  at  the 
stories  of  schoolboy  pranks,  he  is  anxious 
that  the  boy  should  not  be  found  out, 
and  at  the  same  time  that  he  should  pose 
as  a  lad  of  spirit;  he  enjoys  the  recital 
of  the  grotesque  peculiarities  of  the  boy's 
tutor,  and  his  feeble  guilelessness. 


Home  Influence  91 

Such  an  attitude  is  perhaps  not  com- 
mon, but  it  is  not  unknown.  Although 
a  master  of  strong  will  may  maintain  a 
hold  over  a  boy  whose  parents  are  indif- 
ferent in  the  matter,  if  the  boy  is  naturally 
affectionate  and  ingenuous,  yet  no  school- 
master can  possibly  do  more  than  control 
a  boy  whose  home  background  is  such 
as  I  have  described,  if  the  boy  is  by  nature 
cynical,  malevolent,  or  low-minded. 

A  celebrated  statesman  was  once  said 
to  venerate  the  institution  of  episcopacy 
and  to  dislike  a  bishop.  There  are  simi- 
larly a  certain  number  of  parents  who 
admire  the  public-school  system  and 
ridicule  a  schoolmaster.  One  does  not 
desire  a  hypocritical  attitude,  that  a 
parent  should  keep  up  an  absurd  pose  of 
veneration  for  a  schoolmaster  whom  he 
may  suspect  to  be  a  fool  and  know  to  be  a 
weak  man.  But  though  the  case  I  have 
depicted  above  is  an  extreme  one,  yet  if 
parents  did  cultivate  more  cordial  rela- 
tions with  schoolmasters,  tried  to  do  their 
good  points  justice,  cordially  co-operated 


92  The  Boarding-House 

with  them,  provided  they  were  once  as- 
sured of  the  master's  goodwill  and  dis- 
cretion, the  result  would  be  a  gain  in  the 
tone  of  public-school  life,  because  there  is 
nothing  more  easy  than  to  help  and  in- 
fluence a  boy,  if  you  are  perfectly  certain 
— and  I  can  thankfully  add  that  this 
has  generally  been  my  own  experience — 
that  a  parent  will  warmly  endorse  any 
policy  that  you  believe  to  be  for  the  boy's 
good,  and  take  for  granted  that  a  master 
has  the  boy's  interests  at  heart. 


ATHLETICS 

IT  is  above  all  things  important  that 
education  should  not  be  wholly  at  the 
mercy  of  a  prevalent  tendency.  The 
schools  of  a  country  are  bound  to  a 
certain  extent  to  reflect  the  ideas  and 
desires  of  that  country,  but  it  is  essential 
that  great  institutions  should  have  a  phil- 
osophical ideal,  a  tradition  of  their  own, 
which  should  not  be  stubbornly  conserva- 
tive, but  which  at  the  same  time  should 
not  be  merely  indicative  of  the  popularis 
aura,  like  a  fluctuating  vane  swinging 
idly  in  the  wind.  What  is  needed  is  a 
statesmanlike  view,  swift  to  welcome  and 
encourage  any  wholesome  and  beneficial 
impulse,  but  at  the  same  time  to  resist 
wisely,  gently,  and  secretly  the  over- 
whelming force  of  fashion. 

93 


94  Athletics 

There  is  no  tendency  which  ought  to 
be  more  carefully  watched  and  guarded 
than  our  present  athletic  ideals,  which 
have  taken  so  firm  a  hold  of  the  country. 
A  rough  test  of  the  popularity  of  athletic 
pursuits  is  the  number  of  daily  papers 
which  are  almost  wholly  concerned  with 
athletic  matters,  as  well  as  the  large 
share  which  they  claim  even  of  great 
dailies.  It  is  apt  to  disconcert  the  philo- 
sophical mind  to  find  a  leading  evening 
paper  displacing  the  war  news  for  a 
column,  introduced  by  prodigious  head- 
Hnes,  recording  the  performance  of  an 
English  team  of  cricketers  in  Australia. 

Now  it  is  simply  fantastic  to  set  one's 
face  obstinately  against  this  wave  of 
feeling,  to  assume  that  it  is  utterly  and 
entirely  frivolous,  childish,  and  absurd  for 
a  great  nation  to  attach  such  importance 
to  such  things.  It  was  characteristic  of 
Athens  at  the  time  of  her  brightest  po- 
litical eminence,  when  her  writers  were 
pondering  with  careless  ease  works  which 
have  given  a  literary  standard  to  the  most 


Athletic  Distinction  95 

keenly  intellectual  periods  ever  since,  and 
are  at  once  the  wonder  and  despair  of 
creative  minds,  to  attach  a  similar  im- 
portance to  athletic  pursuits.  It  is  not 
therefore  a  state  of  things  inconsistent 
with  high  political  and  intellectual  fer- 
vour, though  it  may  not  now  coexist 
with  those  things  in  England. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  doubt 
a  certain  danger  in  the  tendency.  Boys 
brought  up  under  the  influence  of  an  over- 
whelming preponderance  of  athletics  are 
apt  to  lose  the  balance  and  proportion  of 
mind  and  life  altogether.  To  think  that 
athletic  distinction  is  the  one  thing  worth 
living  for  is  to  lay  plans  for  life  as  though 
it  ended  at  thirty. 

It  is  dangerous  again  for  boys  to  feel 
that  the  swiftest  and  surest  way  to 
eminence  is  through  athletics.  There  is 
a  deep-seated  thirst  for  personal  distinc- 
tion in  most  active-minded  boys;  and  to 
gain  the  badges  of  athletic  merit,  in  the 
shape  of  caps  and  other  trophies,  to  wear 
them  with  solemn  pride  before  others  not 


96  Athletics 

so  fortunate,  to  see  their  names  in  the 
papers  as  the  makers  of  long  scores,  to 
appear  before  the  public  at  metropolitan 
cricket  grounds — all  this  naturally  tends 
to  cast  a  glamour  over  athletics  which  is 
very  potent  indeed.  The  danger  would 
be  inconsiderable  if  we  could  depend  upon 
matters  righting  themselves  as  soon  as  the 
boys  entered  upon  the  sober  business  of 
the  world ;  but  now  that  athletic  pursuits 
can  be  and  are  prolonged  into  middle  life, 
the  contact  with  the  workaday  world  does 
not  necessarily  undeceive  a  man. 

Of  course  the  athletic  system  has  great 
and  obvious  advantages:  it  gives  health 
and  healthful  occupation  to  boys  at  a 
time  when  they  are  both  desiderata;  it 
confers  on  boys  certain  manly  qualities — 
presence  of  mind,  the  self-possession 
which  enables  a  person  to  play  an  un- 
concerned part  in  the  presence  of  his 
fellows;  it  may  produce,  though  it  does 
not  always  produce,  serenity  under  defeat, 
the  sacrifice  of  self  to  the  interests  of 
a  side,  power  of  leadership,  obedience, 


Personal  Distinction  97 

hardiness,  and  many  other  valuable  things. 
But  the  danger  at  present  is  that  the 
system  does  not  tend  to  produce  the  due 
subordination  of  self,  but  only  the  intense 
desire  to  be  personally  distinguished  in 
these  matters.  I  once  asked  a  good  many 
boys  to  tell  me  candidly  whether  they 
would  prefer  to  gain  great  distinction 
in  a  match  and  have  their  side  beaten, 
or  that  their  side  should  win,  but  that 
they  themselves  should  be  discredited; 
and  I  can  only  say  that  very  few  indeed 
choose  the  latter  alternative. 

Moreover,  it  used  to  be  asserted  that 
athletics  were  valuable  from  a  moral  point 
of  view,  and  kept  physical  temptations  at 
bay.  I  do  not  think  that  this  can  be 
maintained,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  per- 
sonal popularity  w^hich  the  athlete  enjoys, 
the  almost  adoration  with  which  he  is 
often  regarded,  is  of  itself  a  great  danger 
if  a  boy  is  prone  to  sensual  faults. 

I  do  not  here  propose  to  discuss  the 
respective  merits  of  different  kinds  of 
games;     I    only    desire    to    trace    what 


98  Athletics 

the  attitude  of  schoolmasters  should  be 
towards  games. 

It  is  of  course  undeniable  that  a  suc- 
cessful athletic  career  is  of  itself  a  high 
qualification  for  the  position  of  a  school- 
master. Games  are  so  carefully  organ- 
ised, so  integral  a  part  of  school  life, 
that  it  is  necessary  to  have  competent 
persons  who  can  give  them  supervision, 
and  whose  record  is  one  which  the  boys 
will  respect.  It  is,  moreover,  a  healthy 
thing  and  promotes  general  good  feeling 
that  the  masters  should  take  part  in  the 
games  of  the  school,  though  I  confess 
that  it  seems  to  me  somewhat  undignified 
for  the  masters,  as  is  the  case  in  many 
private  schools,  to  be  as  vigorously  on 
duty  out  of  school  as  in,  and  to  be  prac- 
tically little  more  than  professionals  in 
hours  of  recreation. 

A  man  who  comes  to  school  as  a  com- 
petent athlete  finds  his  path  smoothed 
for  him  from  the  first,  and  the  boys  are 
ready  to  give  him  the  prompt  obedience 
which  admiration  encourages,  especially 


Athletic  Qualifications  99 

if  they  feel  that  they  can  consult  him  out 
of  school  on  the  object  that  is  of  the 
greatest  importance  to  themselves.  But 
I  am  on  the  other  hand  quite  sure  that 
the  athletic  qualification  is  not  the  only 
title  to  respect.  I  may  perhaps  quote  a 
personal  experience;  I  was  for  a  few 
years  a  competent  football  player,  when  I 
first  went  to  a  public  school  as  a  master, 
until  a  bad  accident  put  an  end,  once  and 
for  all,  to  my  appearance  in  that  capa- 
city. I  admit  that  I  had  attached  con- 
siderable importance  to  the  fact  that  I 
could  take  a  part  from  time  to  time  in 
school  matches,  and  I  feared  that  I  might 
find  that  it  would  become  harder  without 
it  to  maintain  my  position,  such  as  it  was, 
with  the  boys.  But  I  have  not  found 
that  my  retirement  has  made  any  per- 
ceptible difference — indeed,  two  seasons 
after  my  retirement  I  found  the  boys  were 
entirely  unaware  that  I  had  ever  been  a 
football  player  at  all. 

The  mistake   that   is  often  made  by 
schoolmasters  is  to  put  themselves  too 


loo  Athletics 

much  on  a  level  with  the  boys  in  these 
matters.  Of  course  if  a  man  is  frankly 
absorbed  in  athletics  himself,  and  makes 
no  secret  of  the  fact  that  two  rounds  of 
golf  a  day  are  as  important  and  integral  a 
part  of  his  life  as  meals  and  sleep,  it  is 
hard  for  him  to  attempt  to  regulate  the 
feelings  of  the  boys  on  the  subject.  But  I 
am  strongly  of  opinion  that  the  interest 
of  masters  in  games  should  be  of  the 
paternal  kind;  that  the  boys  should  feel 
that  the  interest  the  masters  take  in  the 
garhes  is  not  the  interest  of  the  partisan 
or  the  expert,  so  much  as  the  personal 
interest  which  they  take  in  all  that 
concerns  the  boys  for  whom  they  are 
responsible. 

I  cannot  indicate  how  this  should  be 
made  clear  to  the  boys  unless  it  is  actually 
there;  but  I  am  quite  clear  that  if  the 
interest  which  a  master  took  in  games 
was  of  this  sort,  the  fact  would  be  soon 
appreciated  by  the  boys;  and  I  think  it 
is  very  important  that  the  boys  should 
feel,  not  in  an  oppressive  or  priggish  way, 


Athletic  Interests  loi 

but  as  a  thing  that  is  absolutely  natural 
and  right,  that  their  masters  have  some- 
what more  extended  interests,  and  are 
occupied  with  somewhat  larger  consid- 
erations than  the  exact  merits  of  each 
member  of  the  team  or  the  boat. 

Of  course  I  do  not  recommend  a  Jesuit- 
ical subtlety  in  the  matter.  I  do  not 
desire  that  the  hopes  and  fears  and  ideals 
of  the  masters  should  be  mainly  and  can- 
didly athletic,  and  that  they  should 
scheme  to  conceal  this  from  the  boys,  and 
should  be  always  drawing  morals  and 
pointing  to  higher  things — though  I  do 
think  that  this  old-fashioned  function  of 
the  parent  and  the  schoolmaster  is  some- 
what unduly  depressed — but  what  I  con- 
tend for  is  that  the  masters  should  have 
wider  interests  and  bigger  ideas,  and  that 
while  they  do  not  conceal  from  the  boys 
that  this  is  the  case,  the  boys  should  at 
the  same  time  see  that  such  things  are  not 
in  the  least  inconsistent  with  a  very  real 
and  active  interest  in  sports  and  pastimes. 

The  danger  throughout  is  that  what  is 


102  Athletics 

meant  for  amusement  and  health  is  get- 
ting to  be  taken  altogether  too  seriously. 
Success  in  games  is  so  ardently  desired, 
it  is  so  much  identified  with  success  in 
school  life,  that  one  knows  of  boys  who 
suffer  in  health  and  have  sleepless  nights 
when  their  cricket  goes  off — boys  who  are 
entirely  and  deeply  thankful  for  a  rainy 
day  in  the  cricket  season  because  it  gives 
them  a  day  free  from  the  burden  of  a 
horrible  anxiety.  When  it  is  reduced  to 
this,  it  is  patent  to  all  that  things  are  not 
in  an  entirely  satisfactory  position;  and 
though  it  may  be  said  that  the  position  of 
athletics  is  now  too  firmly  established  to 
be  worth  tilting  against,  and  that  the  man 
who  resists  the  dominant  athletic  ten- 
dency is  a  mere  Don  Quixote,  I  cannot 
believe  that  it  is  so,  or  that  schoolmasters 
are  right  in  falling  so  completely  in  with 
the  current. 

It  brings  me  back  to  a  former  con- 
clusion, that  a  schoolmaster  ought  not  to 
be  content  to  think  that  he  has  done  his 


Balance  103 

duty,  if  he  has  spent  a  day  in  which  he 
has  taught  firmly  his  prescribed  subject, 
insisting  on  the  tale  of  work;  has  looked 
on  at  or  taken  part  in  some  match  or 
contest  in  the  afternoon,  and  has  dis- 
cussed with  heat  and  enthusiasm  the 
athletic  topics  of  the  day,  the  precise 
shades  of  superiority  which  the  play  of 
a  particular  boy  or  a  particular  master  has 
shown,  and  perhaps  arrived  at  maturer 
views  of  the  same  question  over  a  mid- 
night pipe.  It  is  difficult  to  say  exactly 
at  what  point  he  has  failed  in  his  duty; 
but  I  would  contend  that  the  game  over, 
the  requisite  freshness  of  body  attained, 
there  ought  to  be  other  subjects  which 
he  is  ready  and  anxious  to  attack,  there 
ought  to  be  books  he  desires  to  read,  or 
points  that  he  is  disposed  to  discuss;  and 
I  would  maintain  that  the  master  who, 
having  spent  such  a  day  as  I  have  de- 
scribed, lays  his  head  on  the  pillow  in  a 
perfectly  virtuous  and  self-satisfied  frame 
of  mind  is  possibly  to  be  envied,  as  we 


I04  Athletics 

might  envy  a  dog  who  curls  himself  up 
in  his  basket  with  a  happy  sigh  after  a 
vigorous  day,  but  he  is  not  less  cer- 
tainly both  borne  and  mistaken  in  his 
view  of  the  balance  and  proportion  of 
life. 


XI 
TIME 

ONE  of  the  perennial  difficulties  in 
the  assiduous  schoolmaster's  way  is 
the  question  of  time — how  to  gain  it,  how 
to  use  it.  It  generally  happens  in  other 
professions  that  a  man  as  he  rises  in  it 
has  most  leisure;  the  simplest  drudgery 
is  spared  him,  he  can  choose  more  what 
he  likes,  he  can  do  the  part  of  his  work 
that  he  prefers,  he  can  leave  details  to 
his  subordinates.  But  the  precise  oppo- 
site is  the  case  with  schoolmasters.  When 
a  man  first  goes  to  a  school  as  a  master, 
his  duty  is  simply  to  teach  a  division;  as 
his  work  goes  on,  other  things  are  gradu- 
ally put  into  his  hand;  he  becomes  a 
tutor,  he  gives  special  instruction,  he  takes 
up  special  subjects,  he  undertakes  the 
supervision  of  some  school  department, 
105 


io6  Time 

he  manages  some  athletic  business,  he 
discharges  secretarial  duties,  he  controls 
a  workshop  or  a  gymnasium,  he  audits 
accounts — one  of  the  many  public  ser- 
vices that  have  to  be  done  by  someone, 
and  which,  though  not  compulsory,  are 
apt  to  be  pressed  upon  active  men.  Then 
comes  a  boarding-house,  and  a  whole 
class  of  new  duties  falls  into  the  hands  of  a 
schoolmaster,  and  these  as  a  rule  continue 
to  the  end. 

How  to  deal  with  this;  how  to  secure 
some  time  for  reading,  for  recollection, 
for  thought — this  is  a  problem  which 
weighs  upon  some  men  very  heavily, 
though  it  must  be  confessed  that  it  does 
not  weigh  upon  all  alike,  because  it  is 
very  common  to  find  active  men  without 
originative  power,  men  who  like  to  have 
tasks  set  them,  and  are  happiest  when 
every  moment  is  filled  with  small  and 
definite  duties. 

Of  course  it  is  a  great  thing  that  there 
should  be  men  of  this  practical,  will- 
ing type  at  a  school,  but  it  is  not  the 


Details  107 

only  type,  and,  while  schoolmasters  are 
educators,  it  is  impossible  to  insist  too 
strongly  upon  their  duty  to  be  intel- 
lectually alive. 

The  problem  is  easy  of  solution  in  the 
case  of  men  who  do  their  work  rapidly; 
men  of  great  intellectual  concentration 
and  decisive  views  can  get  through  exer- 
cises and  papers  with  great  rapidity,  and 
do  them  very  fair  justice  too.  But  these 
are  rare;  and  I  am  sure  that  the  school- 
master is  often  in  danger  of  being  im- 
mersed in  detailed  work  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  of  the  school  term,  work 
which  he  may  perform  conscientiously, 
but  without  animation ;  and  then,  although 
he  may  be  respected  and  though  he 
may  exact  solid  work  from  the  boys, 
he  is  not  likely  to  communicate  any 
enthusiasm.  A  boy  does  not  feel  enthusi- 
astic when  he  takes  an  exercise  carefully 
underlined  from  the  hands  of  a  tired 
master,  but  when  he  feels  himself  in 
contact  with  a  vigorous  mind. 

A  great  deal  can  be  done  by  pure  and 


io8  Time 


/ 


simple  method;  if  a  man  makes  definite 
rules  for  himself,  and  keeps  them  mechan- 
ically, an  immense  saving  can  always  be 
effected.  He  should  settle  with  himself 
his  hours  of  sleep,  his  hours  of  recreation; 
and  if  time  is  thus  methodised  and 
arranged,  and  if  dawdling,  irresolute 
habits  are  strenuously  avoided,  it  is  sur- 
prising to  find  how  much  time  remains. 
If  one  adds  up  carefully  all  the  hours  of 
the  day  that  are  spent  in  definite  occu- 
pations, and  subtracts  the  amount  from 
twenty-four  hours,  it  is  almost  shock- 
ing to  discover  how  large  a  margin  there 
is. 

The  key  of  the  situation  is  to  be  found 
in  the  simple  fact  that  a  man  has  always 
time  for  anything  that  he  desires  suffi- 
ciently to  do ;  work  gets  itself  done  in  the 
most  astonishing  way  if  one  has  only  a 
suppressed  desire  in  the  background  to 
be  at  it;  and  it  is  clear  that  as  a  rule 
the  principal  reason  which  keeps  a  man 
from  reading,  writing,  private  work  of 
any  kind  in  a  busy  life  is  not  that  he  is 


Method  109 

too  busy,  but  that  he  does  not  really  want 
to  do  it. 

A  great  bishop  lately  dead,  who  was 
for  fifteen  years  a  public -school  master, 
told  me  that  he  had  never  been  able  to  do 
so  much  theological  work  when  a  bishop 
as  he  had  been  able  to  do  when  he  was 
a  schoolmaster,  though  he  had  as  much  or 
more  leisure  time,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  he  had  known  exactly,  as  a  school- 
master, what  his  free  spaces  were,  and 
that  if  he  did  not  use  them  ftilly  he  must 
wait  until  the  next  interval. 

A  man  is  justified  in  resolutely  guard- 
ing against  interruptions  in  the  hours 
which  he  consecrates  to  private  work; 
he  ought  to  be  accessible  at  certain 
hours  of  the  day,  but  there  will  be 
times  when  the  only  interruptions  to  be 
feared  are  casual  callers,  and  against  such 
invasions  he  may  erect  a  fence  of  habit 
and  deliberate  seclusion. 

For  instance,  on  a  half-holiday  after- 
noon there  is  often  a  pleasant  interval 
between  exercise  and  work.     If  exercise 


no 


Time 


is  soberly  taken,  so  as  to  refresh  without 
fatiguing,  a  man's  mental  powers  are  at 
their  very  best  at  such  a  time.  It  is 
tempting  to  the  natural  man  to  sip  tea, 
to  talk,  to  reflect,  to  turn  over  the  pages 
of  a  book,  to  slumber;  but  I  have  found 
by  experience  that  it  is  possible  to  culti- 
vate a  feeling  of  intense  jealousy  about 
these  hours  and  to  retire  into  solitude, 
which  it  is  absolutely  forbidden  to  in- 
vade except  in  a  case  of  extreme  neces- 
sity, and  that  the  hours  thus  guarded 
add  up  very  rapidly.  The  books  read 
accumulate;  the  little  manuscript  grows 
— and  this  without  trenching  on  hours  of 
definite  work,  without  rendering  a  man 
unsociable,  without  destroying  possibili- 
ties of  exercise. 

One  difficulty  arises  from  letters.  As 
life  goes  on  one's  correspondence  tends 
to  grow;  I  can  only  say  that  rapidity  in 
dealing  with  letters  should  be  religiously 
cultivated,  and  moreover  the  habit  of 
using  up  fragments  of  time.  A  great 
many   of    a   schoolmaster's   letters    are 


Letters  m 

merely  small  questions  of  detail.  An 
important  or  an  anxious  letter  must  of 
course  be  dealt  with  at  leisure.  There  are 
many  little  contrivances  too  which  help  a 
man  to  do  work  of  this  kind  expeditiously 
— materials  at  hand  everywhere,  care  and 
method  in  the  arrangement  of  papers,  and 
so  forth. 

If  I  hear  a  man  complain  that  there  is 
no  time  for  anything  but  work,  I  feel  sure 
that  one  of  the  above  characteristics  is 
wanting — that  he  is  either  unmethodical, 
or  that  the  central  desire  is  wanting. 
I  am  quite  sure  from  experience  that 
the  latter  is  generally  the  case.  If  the 
desire  is  strong  enough,  the  work  is  done; 
and,  again,  the  presence  of  an  active 
desire,  the  having  on  hand  work  of  a 
kind  which  is  a  pleasure  and  to  which  a 
man  turns  with  avidity,  is  in  itself  the 
most  potent  influence  to  make  a  man 
methodical. 


XII 
HOLIDAYS 

MUCH  might  be  said  about  the  wise 
use  of  holidays.  They  are,  of 
course,  a  time  of  storage — storage  of 
health  and  vigour  and  interest,  and  all 
the  things  on  which  there  is  a  heavy 
drain  in  the  school-time. 

In  the  first  place  there  should  be  plenty 
of  open  air  and  exercise,  especially  for 
men  of  a  sedentary  habit,  who  should  take 
exercise  patiently  and  philosophically  as  a 
tonic.  But  the  schoolmaster's  life  is  not  a 
sedentary  one,  and  the  holidays  should  not 
be  consecrated  to  exercise  pure  and  sim- 
ple, because  one  of  the  obvious  advan- 
tages of  the  schoolmaster's  life  is  that 
exercise,  and  even  violent  exercise,  can 
easily  be  obtained. 

I  do  not  think  that  there  is  any  excuse 


Rest  113 

for  schoolmasters  making  the  holidays  a 
kind  of  physical  debauch;    and  the  man 
who   spends   the   daylight   hours   of   his 
hoUday  on  cricket,  or  golf,  or  mountain 
climbing,  and  the  rest  of  his  time  in  gossip, 
or  cards,  or  billiards,  may  come  back  to 
his    work    in    what    he    considers    good 
physical  condition,  but  he  will  not  return 
to    routine    with    any    willingness,    but 
rather  in  a  state  of  irritation  at  the  re- 
straints it  is  going  to  impose  upon  him. 
What  a  schoolmaster  should  rather  aim 
at  in  the  holidays  is  change  and  variety. 
He  should  certainly  rest  in  the  first  place. 
Charles  Kingsley  used  to  say  that  when 
he  broke  down  in  health  from  overwork 
he  used  to  rush  off  and  indulge  in  violent 
forms  of  physical  exercise,  and  was  often 
surprised  to  find  how  slowly  he  recovered. 
Later  in  life  he  learnt  that  what  he  had 
been  doing  was  merely  substituting  one 
kind  of  strain  for  another,  and  that  a  wise 
passiveness  was  the  best  beginning,  gradu- 
ally increasing  physical  exercise  as  the 
holiday  advanced.     In    the  matter,   for 


114  Holidays 

instance,  of  sleep,  a  schoolmaster  is  often 
rather  apt,  rising  early  and  going  to  bed 
late  as  he  does,  to  have  large  arrears  to 
make  up,  and  sleep  is  a  matter  of  idiosyn- 
crasy. Mr.  Gladstone  used  to  say  that  the 
old  rule  of  seven  hours  for  a  man,  eight 
for  a  woman,  and  nine  for  a  fool,  was  the 
silliest  piece  of  absurdity  ever  framed; 
and  to  a  schoolmaster  who  has  worked 
hard,  long  hours  of  bed  in  the  holidays 
are  often  highly  valuable. 

Some  people  like  travel,  some  like  visit- 
ing, some  like  a  leisurely  home  life  in 
familiar  scenes;  and,  for  rest,  it  is  of  great 
importance  that  a  man  should  enjoy  the 
prospect  of  whatever  he  is  going  to  do. 
But  two  things  are  certain:  that  for  a 
man  whose  time  for  reading  is  limited, 
and  whose  work  is  intellectual,  there 
should  be  a  serious  attempt  to  read  some- 
thing to  stir  and  fill  the  mind. 

Then,  too,  the  schoolmaster  should 
avoid,  as  a  general  rule,  the  society  of 
his  colleagues  in  the  holidays.  He  should 
wash    his    mind    clear    of    worries     and 


Visiting  1 1 5 

anxieties  and  familiar  questions.  He 
should  try  and  set  himself  in  line  with 
the  outer  world,  and  put  his  cramped 
mind  in  easier  positions.  He  should  try 
and  see  something  of  general  society, 
and  of  men  and  women  whose  view  of 
life  is  not  the  same  as  his  own.  He  should 
be  apt  to  visit  at  the  homes  of  some  of 
his  pupils,  if  he  is  asked  to  do  so.  There 
is  no  hold  so  valuable  on  boys  as  the  hold 
which  comes  of  intimacy  with  their 
parents,  and  some  idea  as  to  how  their 
lives  are  conditioned.  It  is  good  to  revisit 
the  University,  it  is  good  to  visit  London; 
the  best  thing  is  to  have  some  general 
scheme  of  interest  and  theory,  and  to  fit 
the  details  according  to  taste. 

Of  course,  the  above  applies  mainly  to 
the  unmarried  schoolmaster.  A  married 
schoolmaster  has  enough  to  do  to  try 
and  pick  up  the  threads  of  his  own 
broken  domestic  life.  But  the  general 
result  should  be  that  a  man  should  re- 
turn to  his  work  in  good  spirits,  fresh, 
and  with  his  head  full  of  new  schemes 


ii6  Holidays 

and  experiments,  anxious  to  see  his  boy- 
friends, and  with  a  pleasant  store  of 
holiday  experiences. 

I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  a  fair  thing  to 
one's  profession  to  work  too  hard  in  the 
holidays.  The  temptation  is  great  to 
an  ardent  sightseer  to  travel  feverishly 
about  and  to  try  and  press  a  great  deal 
into  the  time;  the  man  who  is  interested 
in  literary  work  is  apt  to  immerse  himself 
in  writing;  the  philanthropist  or  the 
evangelist  is  inclined  to  study  problems, 
or  to  make  his  voice  heard  in  the  pulpit. 
But  though  the  main  thing  is  that  the 
holidays  should  be  spent  in  a  congenial 
way,  it  is  a  bad  thing  to  feel  that  the 
coming  term  is  an  interruption  of  one's 
real  preferences.  If  a  man  feels  this,  and 
feels  it  constantly,  he  had  better  begin 
to  reflect  whether  he  is  in  his  place  as  a 
schoolmaster  at  all,  and  whether  he  had 
not  better  adopt  a  line  of  activity  more 
consonant  with  his  tastes  and  desires; 
because  schoolmastering  is  not  only  a 
trade  or  a  profession,  it  is  an  art;    and 


Freshness  117 

if  a  man  feels  that  his  heart  is  not  in 
his  work,  but  elsewhere,  he  had  better, 
even  at  the  sacrifice  of  worldly  prospects, 
resolutely  make  up  his  mind  to  employ 
himself  more  where  his  treasure  is.  This 
may  seem  unpractical  advice;  but  there 
is  no  sadder  or  more  deadening  thing 
than  to  go  back  to  a  profession  which 
bores  you,  without  interest  or  zeal,  unless, 
indeed,  a  man  is  in  the  unhappy  position 
of  having  neither  enthusiasm  nor  prefer- 
ences; and  in  this  case  it  is  not  even 
conscientious  to  pursue,  unwillingly  and 
heavily,  a  profession  on  which  the  minds 
and  characters  and  futures  of  so  many 
human  beings  depend. 


XIII 
SOCIABILITY 

THE  sociability  of  masters  among 
themselves  is  a  very  important 
question.  I  suppose  it  is  inevitable  that 
at  the  majority  of  schools  the  common- 
room  system  should  prevail,  on  the  ground 
of  economy ;  but  it  brings  with  it  obvious 
and  undeniable  evils  which  are  absent 
from  societies  where  the  common  life  is 
not  so  insistent.  It  is  hardly  to  be  hoped 
that  men,  possibly  irritable  and  probably 
tired,  should  meet  day  after  day  at  meals 
without  engendering  a  certain  amount  of 
friction;  and  possibly  the  institution  of 
silent  meals,  as  in  monastic  life,  might 
be  useful,  if  feasible.  In  a  close  society 
all  sorts  of  little  things  get  on  sensitive 
nerves.  The  tones  of  certain  voices,  the 
familiar  turns  of  remarks,  ancient  stories, 

Ii8 


Common-Rooms  119 

methods  of  dealing  with  food,  small  per- 
sonal characteristics,  are  apt  to  grate  on 
perceptions  stimulated  by  irritability.     I 
am   sure  that   it   is  a  good   thing  that 
masters  should  be,  if  possible,  in  separate 
lodgings,  and  that  they  should  not  meet 
more  than  once  in  the  day,  if  it  can  be 
so  arranged  without  undue  expense.    But 
if  they  must  meet,  nothing  but  the  exer- 
cise of  resolute  good-humour,  deliberate 
courtesy,  careful  tact,  can  possibly  mini- 
mise the  evil.     If  masters  can  breakfast 
alone,  and  can  take  a  midday  meal  with 
the  boys,  they  ought  to  be  able  to  meet 
once  a  da}^  without  undue  friction;   and 
the  occasional  presence  of  the  headmaster 
at  these  gatherings  doubtless  would  tend 
to  preserve  harmony.    At  the  same  time  it 
is  probable  that  there  will  be  some  master- 
ful, prejudiced  man  of  quick  r^peech  who 
will  inevitably  give  a  good  deal  of  pain 
to  his  colleagues.    A  stubborn  insistence 
on  opinions,  the  expression  of  contempt 
for  other  people's  view^s,  are  difficult  to 
avoid  in  such  societies.     I  have  heard  of 


I20 


Sociability 


pathetic  and  melancholy  scenes  that  have 
taken  place  at  these  gatherings.  I  have 
heard  of  an  assistant-master  of  aesthetic 
tastes  saying  in  a  fretful  voice,  during  a 
pause  in  the  rich  tide  of  shop, ''  We  sit  here 
day  after  day,  and  the  name  of  Ruskin  is 
not  even  mentioned!"  I  have  heard  of 
masters  condemned  to  meet  week  after 
week  at  the  common  meal  who  were  not 
on  speaking  terms  with  each  other,  and 
never  communicated  except  in  acid  notes. 
I  have  heard  of  a  young  man,  new  to  his 
work,  listening  to  a  room  which  was  sepa- 
rated into  two  eager  groups,  one  of  which 
was  discussing  the  relative  size  of  their 
class-rooms,  and  the  other  the  portion  of 
the  human  frame  best  adapted  for  the 
infliction  of  corporal  punishment. 

Of  course  the  trivialities  of  ordinary 
intercourse  are  very  distressing;  there 
must  be  trivialities  indeed,  and  it  is 
impossible  for  men  living  a  common  life 
with  common  interests  not  to  indulge 
largely  in  "shop."  But  I  think  that 
masters  ought   deliberately  to  attempt 


Friendliness  121 

to  keep  the  tone  of  such  gatherings 
good-humoured,  if  not  intelligent.  And 
if  each  member  of  the  party  were  con- 
vinced of  the  necessity  of  doing  so,  the 
conquest  would  be  an  easy  one. 

Apart  from  that,  each  master  should  try 
to  see  something  of  his  fellows  in  private, 
to  understand  them,  to  admire  their  good 
points,  to  sympathise  with  them.  At  the 
school  which  I  serve  the  social  question 
is  comparatively  easy.  The  masters  live 
separate,  except  for  small  ''rookeries"  of 
two  or  three  junior  masters,  which  asso- 
ciations are  generally  determined  by 
private  friendship.  Small,  brief  dinner- 
parties are  often  given  by  housemasters, 
where  one  meets  one's  fellows  on  the 
pleasantest  terms,  and  a  man  who  is 
willing  to  spend  a  little  money  on  en- 
tertaining does  not  throw  it  away.  It 
makes,  moreover,  a  great  difference,  trivial 
though  it  may  appear,  that  evening 
dress  is  habitually  worn.  A  man  dressed 
for  dinner  puts  on  with  his  armour  a 
certain  deliberate  courtesy;    and  though 


122  Sociability 

it  might  be  rather  troublesome,  I  believe 
that  it  would  be  a  gain  if  this  were  adopted 
at  common-room  gatherings.  Indeed,  I 
think  it  an  important  thing,  both  from 
the  point  of  view  of  boys  and  colleagues, 
that  slovenliness  of  dress  and  demeanour 
should  be  sedulously  avoided.  But  a 
master's  life  is  too  busy  for  any  great 
sociability,  and  general  society  is  one  of 
the  things  that  he  must  cheerfully  make 
up  his  mind  to  forego.  But  it  is  astonish- 
ing how  the  dinner-parties  I  have  alluded 
to  make  for  peace  and  mutual  understand- 
ing. It  is  difficult  to  quarrel  with  a  man 
who  has  sat  next  you  at  dinner  and  made 
himself  agreeable.  And  what  is  more 
important  still,  it  is  well  that  boys 
should  feel  that  the  masters  are  friends 
and  allies  among  themselves,  not  in  the 
spirit  of  a  Trades  Union,  but  for  the  best 
of  human  reasons.  It  is  impossible,  and 
I  think  undesirable,  that  masters  should 
never  speak  to  boys,  or  boys  to  masters, 
of  other  masters;  indeed  I  think  that  a 
master  who  is  not  afraid  to  speak  of  the 


Gossip  123 

good  points  of  his  colleagues  to  boys 
smooths  the  way  for  them  very  consider- 
ably. Of  course  mere  gossip  should  be 
avoided ;  but  it  is  only  natural  for  human 
beings  who  meet  constantly  to  talk  to 
each  other  of  the  people  in  whom  they 
are  interested, — and  to  lay  down  a  hard 
and  fast  rule  about  silence  on  such  points, 
is  to  keep  up  that  sour  and  grim  mystery, 
the  mystery  of  the  ''buckram,"  which 
has  prevailed  too  long  in  English  school 
life.  Of  course  tact  is  needed,  and  a  mas- 
ter should  lay  down  for  himself  a  general 
principle  that  it  is  undesirable  for  him  to 
gossip  to  boys  about  other  masters;  but 
I  am  quite  sure  that  it  is  a  principle  and 
not  a  rule,  and  that  great  benefits  may 
result  from  a  master  being  willing  to 
explain  another  master  to  a  boy  in  a 
kindly,  human  way.  Boys  will  be  sure 
to  discuss  masters  among  themselves,  and 
it  is  better  that  they  should  have  some 
true  facts  to  go  upon,  rather  than  the 
very  superficial  impression  that  they  will 
themselves  form. 


XIV 
RELIGION 

IT  is  undoubtedly  true  that  Englishmen 
are  apt  to  be  reticent  about  religious 
matters.  A  great  many  people  share  the 
opinion  of  the  sage  who,  on  being  asked 
what  his  religion  was,  replied  that  he 
was  of  the  religion  of  all  sensible  men; 
and  on  being  pressed  to  define  it  more 
particularly,  he  went  on  to  say  that  it 
was  what  all  sensible  men  kept  to  them- 
selves. 

If  the  average  Englishman  is  not  very 
keenly  interested  in  the  superficial  or 
rather  technical  aspect  of  religion;  if  he 
is  somewhat  contemptuous  of  the  so- 
called  science  of  worship,  liturgical  tradi- 
tion;   if  he  does  not  take  a  very  active 

interest  in  dogmatic  religion  or  in  meta- 
124 


Duty  125 

physical  processes,  he  is,  I  believe,  very 
deeply  interested  in  the  essentials  of 
religion.  I  think  that  there  is  a  very  deep 
attachment  in  the  minds  of  English 
people  to  the  principles  of  Justice,  Mercy, 
and  Truth ;  a  strong  national  instinct  for 
duty  and  manly  living.  Perhaps  the 
poetical  side  of  religion,  the  beauty  of 
holiness,  the  sense  of  mystical  communion, 
the  reveries  of  faith,  the  spirit  of  symbol- 
ism, the  attitude  of  reverence  are  not  as 
dear  as  they  might  be  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  character. 

But  it  is  better  to  cultivate  existing 
virtues  than  to  endeavour  to  create  those 
that  do  not  rest  upon  a  natural  instinct; 
and  a  master  has  faith  enough  to  appeal 
to  in  the  solid  sense  of  duty  which  is 
undoubtedly  present  in  the  mind  of  the 
majority  of  English  boys. 

English  boys  moreover,  like  English 
men,  have  a  strong  sense  of  appropriate- 
ness in  the  matter  of  religion ;  and  though 
a  man  of  strong  and  simple  religious 
feeling  miight  talk  often  and  frankly  to 


126  Religion 

boys  on  religious  subjects  without  being 
misunderstood,  yet  any  attempt  to  do 
this  as  a  matter  of  duty  and  not  as  a 
matter  of  instinct  would  be  apt  to  ren- 
der a  man  liable  to  be  considered  sanc- 
timonious—  a  quality  which  at  once 
alienates  respect. 

In  one  way,  too,  a  boy's  sense  of 
reverence  is  very  strong;  he  dislikes  the 
feelings  which  lie  deep  being  dragged 
habitually  to  the  surface.  I  remember, 
for  instance,  the  case  of  a  pupil  of  my 
own  who  was  prepared  for  confirmation 
by  an  excellent  clergyman  connected  with 
the  school.  After  the  confirmation  was 
over  the  clergyman  asked  the  boy  to 
tea  with  him,  and  complained  to  me 
some  time  after  that  the  boy  never  came. 
This  seemed  to  me  so  odd  that  I  ques- 
tioned the  boy  about  it,  and  it  turned  out 
that  he  was  afraid  the  clergyman  would 
want  to  pray  with  him.  He  had  heard 
that  he  had  done  so  with  a  boy  who 
went  to  tea,  and  someone  had  come  in 
in  the  middle  and  found  them  on  their 


Confirmation  127 

knees;  and  the  prospect  was  one  which 
he  could  not  face. 

On  the  other  hand,  at  the  right  time 
and  place  boys  are  only  too  ready  to 
listen  to  religious  talk  and  to  be  grateful 
for  it.  I  have  never  found  boys  anything 
but  interested  in  a  religious  application 
to  practical  life  made  in  the  course  of 
a  divinity  lesson.  But  all  attempt  to 
touch  on  religious  subjects  in  private  life 
should  be  made  with  infinite  tact  and 
judgment. 

The  preparation  for  confirmation  is  the 
one  great  opportunity  that  a  schoolmaster 
has  for  talking  of  religious  matters  to  his 
boys;  and  I  believe  it  to  be  not  only  a 
right  principle  that  a  boy's  housemaster 
or  tutor  should  have  the  opportunity  of 
preparing  a  boy,  but  that  it  is  a  duty 
which  no  housemaster  or  tutor  should 
avoid  except  for  the  gravest  reasons. 
Of  course  if  a  man  feels  that  his  faith 
is  so  far  divergent  from  the  orthodox 
faith  of  the  Gospel  as  to  make  it  im- 
possible   for    him    to    speak    with    any 


12  8  Religion 

conviction  on  sacred  subjects,  he  can 
hardly  conscientiously  accept  the  task 
of  instructing  a  boy;  but  if  he  holds  the 
cardinal  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith, 
he  ought  not  to  allow  any  mauvaise  honte 
or  any  consideration  of  personal  un- 
worthiness  to  stand  in  his  way. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  the  best  natural 
opportunity  that  a  master  has  for  making 
it  clear  to  the  boy  that  he  does  feel 
religion  to  be  a  vital  matter,  and  that 
it  lies  at  the  back  of  his  life-work;  and 
as  to  personal  unworthiness,  it  is  surely 
possible  for  a  man  to  say  frankly  to  a 
boy  that  he  speaks  not  as  one  who  has 
triumphed  over  difficulties  and  has  ex- 
perienced the  fullest  powers  of  the  faith  of 
Christ,  but  as  one  who  is  an  elder  disciple, 
a  little  ahead  in  point  of  time,  at  all 
events,  upon  the  road  which  leads  to  God, 
who  at  any  rate  sees  clearly  what  he 
believes  to  be  true,  though  his  practice 
may  fall  far  short  of  it.  It  appears  to  me 
that  such  an  appeal,  if  sincerely  made, 
may  be  far  more  potent  than  an  appeal 


Confirmation  129 

made,  so  to  speak,  from  some  higher 
platform. 

I  believe  that  in  preparing  boys  for 
confirmation  it  is  better  to  keep  instruc- 
tion and  practical  cotmsels  apart  in  one 
sense.  That  is  to  say  that  I  believe  that 
the  boys  should  be  clearly  and  simply 
instructed  together  in  doctrinal  teaching, 
and  that  the  basis  of  all  such  instruction 
should  be  the  Apostles'  Creed.  And  that 
they  should  then  be  addressed  together 
or  separately  on  practical  points  of  life 
and  religion,  but  that  the  teacher  should 
be  very  careful  never  to  leave  a  doctrinal 
statement  to  stand  alone  without  after- 
wards showing  how  it  can  and  ought  to 
affect  life  and  action.  Thus  the  thought 
of  God  as  the  Almighty  Creator  should 
be  expanded  into  the  feeling  of  an  utter 
dependence  both  in  physical  and  material 
things  on  causes  that  lie  outside  our  own 
control. 

Care,  too,  should  I  think  be  taken  to 
make  such  preparation  dignified  as  well 
as  simple,  A  worthy  schoolmaster  was 
9 


I30  Religion 

once  asked  how  he  prepared  the  boys 
for  confirmation.  *'0h,"  he  said,  **I 
just  tell  then  to  buck  up."  Even  if  he 
did  not  employ  this  precise  formula  in 
his  private  talks,  one  cannot  help  feeling 
that  such  preparation  should  be  con- 
ducted in  a  more  reverent  and  delicate 
manner.  A  good  many  boys  have  an 
instinctive  sense  of  the  beauty  of  holiness, 
and  an  appeal  may  well  be  made  to  higher 
tones  of  feeling,  and  motives  may  be 
indicated  of  a  deeper  kind  than  those 
which  can  be  dealt  with  in  the  school- 
room or  the  street. 

I  believe  that  each  man  must  settle  for 
himself  whether  it  is  better  to  see  boys 
together  or  separately.  Of  course  some 
topics  should  be  treated  of  separately; 
but  here  again  a  man  should  discover 
how  he  is  most  effective;  and  in  a  busy 
life,  with  a  large  number  of  boys  to 
prepare,  it  is  impossible  I  think  with 
any  freshness  to  say  practically  the  same 
things  over  and  over  again,  perhaps  half 
a  dozen  times  in  the  course  of  the  even- 


Confirmation  131 

ing.  But  if  boys  are  prepared  together, 
great  care  should  be  taken  to  give  each 
as  far  as  possible  a  feeling  of  seclusion; 
to  assemble  boys,  as  used  to  be  done, 
in  a  schoolroom,  and  to  read  lectures 
out  of  a  note-book  is  almost  ideally  in- 
effective. Boys  are  greatly  ruled  by 
outside  impressions,  and  it  is  of  great 
importance  that  a  man  should  change  the 
venue  where  such  instruction  is  concerned ; 
and  that  he  should  speak  easily  and 
without  notes — even  if  he  loses  some 
exactness  by  so  doing — and  in  a  room 
where  each  boy  can  feel  that  he  is  not 
under  the  inspection  of  the  other  boys 
in  the  class. 

These,  however,  are  matters  of  detail 
and  idiosyncrasy.  The  principle  is  that 
masters  should  not  on  any  account  neg- 
lect the  opportunity.  Supposing  that  a 
master  is  a  layman  and  that  the  parents 
desire  a  clerical  preparation,  the  master 
should  make  a  point  of  seeing  the  boy  and 
making  him  feel  that  his  own  interest 
in  the  question  is  a  vital  one. 


132  Religion 

Moreover,  a  few  words  on  religious 
matters  may  well  be  spoken  seriously  to 
boys  when  they  are  leaving  school,  when 
the  heart  is  warm,  and  when  the  most 
eager  temperaments  are  dimly  over- 
shadowed by  the  thought  of  the  larger 
world,  on  the  threshold  of  which  they 
stand. 

Personal  religion  among  boys  is  far 
higher  and  more  common  than  it  used 
to  be  a  few  years  ago.  I  find  that  com- 
paratively few  boys  altogether  neglect 
prayer  and  Bible  reading;  but  at  my 
own  school  there  is  the  advantage  of 
boys  being  in  separate  rooms. 

There  remains  the  question  of  the 
chapel  service;  and  here  we  are  on  more 
difficult  ground.  The  great  majority  of 
boys  come  from  homes  where  the  idea 
of  attending  a  daily  service  would  appear 
merely  fantastic;  and  then  the  daily 
chapel  service  is  very  easily  looked  upon 
as  a  mere  school  formality.  From  the 
master's  point  of  view,  the  school  chapel 
service  should  be  at  a  time  when  masters 


Chapel  Services  133 

can  attend  easily  and  as  a  matter  of 
course;  and  it  is  thus  better  if  possible 
to  make  it  follow  or  immediately  precede 
a  school,  so  that  there  is  no  waste  of  time 
in  going  and  returning.  It  should  also 
be  short  and  varied;  there  should  be  a 
little  simple  singing;  but  such  a  service 
as  the  Litany  should,  I  think,  be  avoided. 
It  is  quite  true  that  it  may  be  a  valuable 
discipline  for  boys  to  try  and  exercise 
themselves  in  following,  in  mind  and 
voice,  a  service  of  a  monotonous  kind; 
but  how  many  boys  avail  themselves  of 
this  discipline?  and  how  can  the  success 
of  the  experiment  be  tested  ?  Some  men 
seem  to  believe  that  a  practice  is  good  and 
valuable  so  long  as  it  is  tedious,  on  the 
principle  that  *'they  also  serve  who  only 
stand  and  wait.'*  I  can  only  say  that  of 
my  own  contemporaries  at  school,  where 
twice  a  week  the  service  consisted  of  the 
Litany,  few  ever  claimed  to  have  got  any 
good  out  of  the  service  so  arranged,  or 
to  have  derived  any  faculty  from  it  ex- 
cept the   unhappy  one   of  isolating  the 


134  Religion 

attention  from  what  is  proceeding  in  your 
presence. 

The  liturgical  faculty  is  a  rare  one,  and 
requires  careful  training.  To  be  able  to 
give  an  uplifted  attention  to  a  series  of 
short  petitions  is  a  very  difficult  matter. 
If  you  are  tempted  to  meditate  for  a 
moment  on  any  one  petition,  you  are  lost; 
the  service  flows  on,  and  you  have  to  take 
it  up  again  where  you  find  it;  on  the 
other  hand,  a  mechanical  and  Pharisaical 
attention  is  not  a  difficult  accomplish- 
ment. But  who  would  say  that  it  had 
any  very  great  spiritual  effect? 

I  would  plead  therefore  for  as  much 
variety  as  is  consistent  with  liturgical 
usage  in  services  for  boys.  A  psalm  and 
a  hymn  would  naturally  be  sung  and  a 
lesson  read,  but  I  think  it  is  a  great  pity 
that  out  of  the  great  storehouse  that 
exists  of  prayers,  both  ancient  and  mod- 
ern, some  should  not  be  used  in  such 
services  as  I  describe,  where  the  con- 
gregation is  young  and  so  dependent 
upon  variety,  so  untrained  to  bear  the 


Prayers  135 

stress  of  liturgical  asceticism.  Not  to 
travel  far  for  instances,  there  are  many 
prayers  of  exquisite  beauty  in  the  works 
of  Jeremy  Taylor;  and  it  would  not  be 
difBcult  to  draw  up  a  little  volume  of 
additional  collects  for  use  in  school 
chapels  which  would  infinitely  enrich  the 
services.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  daily  school  service  is  not  so  much  a 
liturgical  ceremony  as  a  family  gathering 
for  prayer.  Moreover,  it  should  be  made 
a  point  to  secure  if  possible  the  services 
of  a  really  beautiful  reader.  Impressive- 
ness  in  reading  is  not  much  cultivated 
in  England;  but  I  have  heard  a  clergy- 
man read  the  exhortation  at  the  beginning 
of  the  service  in  such  a  way  that  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  never  known 
it  before ;  and  I  have  knelt  at  the  side  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  in  a  Communion  Service, 
and  shall  never  forget  the  impressiveness 
of  his  responses  to  the  commandments, 
the  simple  fervour  with  which  he  made 
each  petition  his  own. 

Again,  as  to  preaching  at  schools,  it  is 


136  Religion 

as  well,  I  believe,  that  the  bulk  of  the 
preaching  should  be  done  by  the  men 
concerned  in  the  work  of  the  place,  and 
that  great  care  should  be  taken  about  the 
sermons  by  those  in  authority.  The 
quality  of  shrewdness,  the  wisdom  of 
serpents  of  which  our  Lord  spoke,  is 
the  quality  most  often  lacking  in  all  our 
pulpits,  but  the  men  who  are  best  ac- 
quainted with  the  life  of  the  place  are 
the  most  likely  to  be  able  to  lay  their 
fingers  on  the  weak  points.  School  ser- 
mons should  be  rigorously  short;  and 
external  preachers  should  not  be  invited 
unless  they  are  of  proved  eminence.  An 
intelligent  boy  once  complained  to  me 
that  the  sermons  of  strange  preachers 
were  as  a  rule  devoted  either  to  the  ques- 
tion of  purity,  or  to  imploring  the  boys 
to  become  clergymen,  or  both;  and  I  thus 
think  it  would  be  as  well  if  the  subjects 
were  carefully  laid  down  beforehand,  so 
that  some  conspectus  of  Christian  life 
might  be  attempted.  If  there  are  two 
sermons  on  a  Sunday,  which  is  unde- 


Preaching  137 

sirable,  I  believe  that  courses  of  exposi- 
tion would  be  found  advantageous  in  the 
morning  at  all  events;  or  the  religious 
instruction  given  by  masters  might  be 
devoted  to  going  through  the  services 
for  the  day,  and  endeavouring  to  make 
it  clear  to  the  boys  what  they  will  hear 
and  say  and  sing; — ''Psallam  et  mente." 
I  read  the  other  day  of  a  w^orthy  parish 
clergyman  whose  services  were  the  de- 
light of  his  parish.  He  was  very  paternal 
in  manner;  he  would  say  after  reading  a 
few  verses  of  a  psalm  that  the  psalm  was 
a  very  difficult  one,  and  that  he  would  ask 
the  congregation  to  sit  down  while  he  ex- 
plained it;  ''and  I  shall  put  aside,"  he 
would  add,  "the  sermon  that  I  have 
written  for  you  to-day,  and  make  my 
sermon  out  of  this,  and  when  we  have 
understood  the  psalm,  we  will  say  it  all 
together  heartily  and  intelligently."  He 
would  go  so  far,  said  his  biographer,  as  to 
suit  his  action  to  the  w^ord  on  occasions ; 
and  when  reading  such  a  psalm  as  '*  O 
clap  your  hands  together,  all  ye  people," 


138  Religion 

]ie  would  clap  his  hands  together  with 
vigorous  illustration. 

Of  course,  the  above  method  requires 
a  mixture  of  originality  and  dignity  which 
is  rare ;  but  I  cannot  help  believing  that 
a  certain  similar  informality  might  well  be 
introduced  into  school  services. 

I  do  not  at  all  believe  in  making  the 
service  too  "  boyish  "  in  character.  I  well 
remember  the  dislike  I  felt  as  a  child  to 
being  made  to  sing  children's  hymns.  I 
did  not  like  to  sing  ''We  are  but  little 
children  weak,"  because  I  did  not  feel 
weak,  and  I  did  not  wish  to  be  reminded 
that  I  was ;  still  more  offensive  was  being 
made  to  sing  about  my  '' little  hands."  I 
did  not  think  them  little,  and  I  did  not 
see  why  they  should  be  made  the  subject 
of  general  remark.  Such  h3^mns  are  more 
for  the  pleasure  of  elder  people,  who  are 
charmed  by  the  sight  of  innocence  and 
weakness  asserting  their  own  claims.  But 
the  boy  delights  to  feel  himself  a  pilgrim, 
a  soldier,  a  hero;  and  he  should  be  en- 
couraged to  feel  that    his   part    in    the 


Sunday  139 

battle  is  as  important  as  that  of  his 
elders. 

Some  masters  like  to  preach  little  ser- 
mons to  the  boys  of  their  own  house,  say 
on  Sunday  evenings.  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  boys  need  so  much  exhortation 
on  Sundays,  and  I  think  that  the  pleasure 
of  the  orator  is  sometimes  as  much  a 
motive  as  the  good  of  the  boys.  More- 
over, it  is  much  easier  to  say  what  you 
want  to  individuals  than  to  numbers. 
Many  boys  are  serious  enough  when  by 
themselves,  but  in  the  presence  of  other 
boys  they  are  affected  by  a  kind  of  false 
shame,  which  shuts  the  doors  of  the 
mind  upon  realities,  and  concerns  itself 
only  with  superficial  matters. 

What  is  most  important  of  all  is  to 
make  the  boys  feel  that  public  worship 
is  a  means  to  an  end ;  that  religion  is  not 
a  separate  department  of  life,  a  thing  for 
the  chapel  and  the  prayer-room,  but  a 
force  animating  the  whole  of  life.  If  they 
can  be  convinced  that  in  the  school 
services    they    can    find    an    inspiration 


I40  Religion 

which  enables  them  to  deal  with  the 
ordinary  temptations  and  difficulties  of 
life  in  a  sober  and  enthusiastic  spirit, 
they  will  value  them;  but  if  they  only 
regard  them  as  stately  solemnities  which 
they  are  bound  to  attend,  they  will  be 
tempted  to  believe  that  they  have  fulfilled 
their  religious  duties  by  attendance,  and 
that  no  more  thought  need  be  given  to 
the  question.  Neither,  I  think,  should 
too  high  an  ideal  be  insisted  upon;  the 
ideal  should  be  high,  but  to  put  very 
great  and  sacred  motives  before  the  boys 
for  doing  very  ordinary  things  for  which 
there  are  other  and  simpler  motives  is 
like  taking  the  Ark  into  battle. 

One  thing  is,  I  believe,  very  important: 
nothing  should  be  allowed  in  any  way  to 
compete  with  the  sanctity  and  solemnity 
of  the  Holy  Communion.  Masters  who 
care  for  religious  things  should  use  dili- 
gence to  make  and  keep  those  boys  who 
have  been  confirmed  communicants.  The 
worst  evils  of  boy  life,  the  sensuality, 
the  greediness,  the  materialistic  views  of 


Holy  Communion  141 

things,  are  apt  to  shrink  and  die  in  the 
presence  of  that  holy  and  awful  mystery ; 
and  it  may  bring  a  sanctification  into  life 
which  no  amount  of  instruction  or  ex- 
hortation can  effect. 

A  master,  then,  should  see  that  his 
own  religion  is  simple  and  vital;  and 
though  he  should  not  get  into  the  way  of 
babbhng  easily  on  religious  subjects,  he 
should  rid  himself  of  the  mauvaise  honte 
which  prevents  so  many  Englishmen  of 
devout  hearts  from  ever  venturing  to 
speak  a  word  to  their  boys  on  such 
svibjects. 


XV 

MORALITIES 

I  WOULD  first  say  a  few  words  about 
*  a  master's  attitude  in  dealing  with 
lesser  offences  against  strict  morality — 
dishonesty,  untruthfulness,  and  so  forth. 
It  is  very  important  to  avoid  exaggera- 
tion, and  there  is  a  subtle  temptation  to  a 
master  to  speak  more  impressively  than 
he  feels  in  the  cause  of  right.  This  is 
particularly  unwise  in  the  case  of  offences 
such  as  copying,  or  the  use  of  cribs,  when 
it  is  useless  to  pretend  that  a  boy  is  con- 
demned by  his  companions.  I  do  not 
mean  that  a  master  should  condescend 
to  accept  the  verdict  of  the  boys'  code 
in  the  matter,  and  treat  such  offences  as 
merely  disciplinary  ones.  But  neither 
should  he  strain  the  contrast  too  far;  let 

him  remember  what  he  would  himself 
142 


Honesty  143 

have  thought  of  such  offences  as  a  boy, 
and  let  him  try  to  indicate  a  motive 
which,  if  it  is  higher  than  the  average 
view  taken  by  the  boy,  should  at  least 
not  be  out  of  his  horizon.  It  is  easy 
to  explain  that  the  word  of  an  English- 
man is  accepted  as  more  likely  to  be 
dependable  than  the  oaths  of  some 
nations;  and  that  a  boy  who  is  in  little 
things  constantly  and  consciously  dis- 
honest and  untruthful  is  not  likely  to  be 
able  to  throw  off  such  meannesses  when 
he  enters  the  world.  Let  a  master  explain 
to  boys  that  incessant  recourse  to  assist- 
ance in  work  tends  to  cripple  the  mind 
and  make  it  unfit  for  vigorous  applica- 
tion. These  are  arguments  which  a  boy 
can  understand  and  appreciate.  It  is 
easy  to  say  to  a  boy  who  has  been 
guilty  of  untruthfulness  or  dishonesty, 
*'I  must  feel  that  I  can  trust  what  you 
say,  and  believe  in  the  honesty  of  your 
work ;  I  intend  to  act  upon  this  supposi- 
tion, and  you  must  do  you  part  as  well." 
The   boy  will   not    feel   this    to    be   an 


144  Moralities 

exaggerated  but  a  sensible  view;  he  will 
not  be  tempted  to  think  it  a  merely  pro- 
fessional statement.  There  may  be  boys 
with  whom  it  is  possible  to  take  a  higher 
line;  but  the  thing  to  be  desired  is  that 
the  arrow  should  hit  the  target  and  not 
fly  over  it.  It  is  just  as  well  too  to 
add  that  in  any  case  it  is  obvious  that 
such  things  cannot  be  permitted  from 
the  disciplinary  point  of  view;  and  that 
if  the  boy  does  not  wish  to  comply  for 
the  better  reason,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
fall  back  upon  the  other.  I  can  only 
say  that  I  have  met  very  few  boys  who 
did  not,  at  all  events,  try  to  appreciate 
the  better  motive. 

A  few  words  must  now  be  said  upon 
what  is  after  all  the  dark  shadow  on 
the  life  of  a  schoolmaster,  his  most 
anxious  and  saddest  preoccupation — I 
mean  the  dread  of  the  possibility  of  the 
prevalence,  or  at  all  events  the  existence, 
of  moral  evil  among  his  boys. 

Some  masters  cut  the  knot  by  ignoring 
the  thought  as  far  as  possible,  and  acting 


Purity  145 

with  extreme  severity  if  any  transgression 
is  brought  before  them.  This  I  beheve 
to  be  both  unwise  and  unjust.  The  age 
at  which  boys  are  at  public  schools, 
covering  as  it  does  the  change  from  boy- 
hood to  manhood,  must  necessarily  be 
attended  with  temptations  of  a  peculiar 
kind.  Instincts  and  impulses,  natural  and 
wholesome  in  themselves,  begin  to  stir  in 
the  awakening  frame,  and  at  a  time  when 
the  lesson  of  moral  self-control  cannot 
have  been  fully  learnt.  Some  few  boys 
are  gifted  with  a  happy  purity  of  nature 
which  carries  them  stainless  through  the 
time  of  trial.  Others  whose  instincts  are 
on  the  right  side  will  remain  pure  if  the 
tone  of  the  society  around  them  is  pure; 
some  few  are  not  so  much  deliberately 
wicked  as  un-moral.  They  have  perhaps 
inherited  a  bias  to  sensuality,  and  have 
not  inherited  any  particular  self-reverence 
or  self-control.  Such  boys  will  be  light- 
heartedly  wicked,  and  their  only  con- 
science will  be  the  fear  of  penalty.  But 
the  schoolmaster  must  realise  that  the 


146  Moralities 

majority  of  boys  would  not  deliberately 
plunge  into  evil,  and  would  be  glad  to  be 
saved  from  themselves  in  the  matter; 
and  his  duty  is  to  give  them  all  the  help 
that  he  can. 

The  darkest  feature  of  the  problem  is 
that  the  boys'  code  of  honour  is  such 
that  the  master  is  probably  the  last 
person  to  hear  of  such  evil;  and  let  me 
say  at  the  outset  that  it  is  not  for  a 
moment  to  be  thought  of  that  he  should 
encourage  the  boys  to  give  him  informa- 
tion— such  a  practice  is  utterly  fatal  to 
his  influence  and  to  his  relations  with 
the  boys. 

There  is  also  a  morbid  way  of  treating 
the  subject.  There  are  certain  masters 
who  seem  to  have  the  question  on  the 
brain,  and  who  suppose,  or  act  as  if  they 
supposed,  that  every  boy  has  to  pass 
through  the  ordeal  of  temptations  to  im- 
purity. My  own  belief  is  that  the  large 
majority  never  come  within  the  reach 
of  direct  external  temptation  at  all.  Boys 
coming  to  a  public  school  from  certain 


Purity  147 

private  schools  are  warned  and  cautioned 
in  a  way  that  I  believe  rather  tends  to 
increase  the  evil  by  familiarity  with  the 
belief  in  its  prevalence,  than  to  diminish 
it.  They  hear  a  voice  in  every  wind,  and 
I  have  little  doubt  that  to  go  too  minutely 
into  details  is  an  entire  mistake  from 
every  point  of  view. 

A  master  should  encourage  parents  to 
speak  to  him,  if  necessary,  on  the  subject 
in  a  general  way.  He  should  not  en- 
deavour to  obtain  specific  information 
from  them,  but  he  should  ask  them, 
when  opportunity  occurs,  to  tell  him 
frankly  if  they  have  any  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  tone  of  the  house  is  unsatis- 
factory. But  any  statements  that  they 
make  should  be  used  with  the  utmost 
discretion,  because  boys  are  apt,  particu- 
larly good  boys,  to  exaggerate  grossly 
in  the  matter,  and  to  believe  that  other 
boys  are  bad  without  any  evidence  but 
that  of  the  merest  gossip.  Parents  will 
often  say  that  boys  can  be  trusted  in  the 
matter,  because  they  have  no  motive  to 


148  Moralities 

make  things  out  worse  than  they  are.  I 
can  only  look  back  to  my  own  experience 
of  school  life  and  reflect  that  I  supposed 
many  boys  to  be  addicted  to  evil  (whom 
I  now  know  to  have  been  entirely  free 
from  it)  for  no  better  reason  than  that 
someone  had  told  me  so. 

I  believe  myself  that  when  a  boy  comes 
to  school  his  housemaster  should  en- 
deavour to  ascertain  whether  he  has  come 
under  any  evil  influences.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  begin  by  asking  about  con- 
versation, and  it  is  easy  enough  to  see 
whether  the  boy  knows  what  is  meant. 
If  one  has  reason  to  suspect  that  there  is 
more  in  the  background,  a  master  should 
endeavour  to  find  out  generally  whether 
there  has  been  any  contact  with  evil, 
reassuring  the  boy  on  the  question  of 
penal  consequences. 

The  master  should  then,  I  think,  try 
to  arrive  at  an  understanding  with  the 
boy  on  the  matter;  should  make  it  plain 
that  he  thinks  and  feels  more  strongly  on 
the  point  than  on  any  other  point  what- 


Purity  149 

ever,  and  that  he  could  not  retain  in  his 
house  any  boy  whose  tone  was  unsound 
in  this  matter.  He  should  say  that  he 
intends  to  ask  the  boy  from  time  to  time 
whether  all  goes  right,  and  at  the  same 
time  make  it  clear  that  it  is  to  be  on  a 
basis  of  mutual  confidence,  and  that  no 
information  about  other  boys  will  be 
asked  for  or  taken. 

Of  course,  there  is  no  guarantee  that 
a  boy  will  fulfil  his  part  of  the  compact; 
but  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  thought 
of  it  does  help  many  boys  to  exercise  care 
in  the  matter,  and  to  take  the  side  which, 
after  all,  the  majority  of  boys  do  desire  to 
take — the  side  of  purity. 

The  boy  should  be  warned  very  sol- 
emnly of  the  disastrous  consequences  of 
such  sin  —  not  in  an  exaggerated  way, 
and  not  sacrificing  truth  to  impressive- 
ness — and  still  more  solemnly  of  the 
infinite  blessings  and  happiness  of  keeping 
modest  and  pure. 

I  believe  that  conversation  among  the 
boys  on  such  subjects  is  a  fruitful  source 


1 50  Moralities 

of  such  evil;  and  I  therefore  do  my  best 
to  keep  the  boys  straight  on  this  point. 
Many  boys  will  tell  you  frankly  whether 
they  have  come  in  the  way  of  evil  talk, 
if  they  feel  quite  certain  that  it  will  not 
involve  any  boy  in  penal  consequences. 
And  I  am  sure  that  the  only  possible  plan 
is  to  be  entirely  rigid  on  this  point.  Not 
only  should  no  name  be  ever  asked  for  or 
listened  to,  but  great  care  should  be  taken 
to  show  that  the  master  does  not  even 
aim  at  identifying  boys  by  collateral  evi- 
dence. Sometimes  identification  is  inevit- 
able; but  I  can  only  say  that  I  have  never 
used  a  statement  of  this  kind  or  betrayed 
a  confidence,  though,  of  course,  if  definite 
evidence  is  laid  before  me  from  some 
other  quarters,  an  investigation  has  to  be 
conducted  on  ordinary  lines. 

Boys  are  very  forgetful  creatures,  and 
the  impression  in  the  earlier  years  of 
school  life  should  not  be  allowed  to  fade. 
I  do  not  fail  to  ask  younger  boys,  especi- 
ally those  who  are  likely  to  be  exposed  to 
temptation,  who  make  friendships  easily 


Purity  1 5 1 

and  widely,  two  or  three  times  in  a  half 
whether  they  are  on  the  right  path, 
and  to  repeat  as  seriously  as  I  can  how 
earnestly  I  desire  a  pure  tone  in  the  house 
— desire  it  indeed  far  beyond  any  other 
thing. 

It  is  possible  that  this  plan  is  not  wholly 
successful ;  it  is  impossible  to  test  it  accu- 
rately; but  I  have  reason  to  believe  that 
it  helps  to  keep  a  right  tone  alive,  and 
minimises  the  evil. 

If  once  a  good  tone  can  be  secured,  it 
is  possible  to  make  it  a  matter  of  pride 
that  it  should  be  maintained.  If  one  can 
truthfully  say  to  boys  that  the  house  has  a 
good  reputation  in  the  matter,  many  boys 
will,  without  any  affectation  of  superior 
goodness,  be  interested  in  trying  to  keep 
it  so.  But  on  the  other  hand  no  school- 
master can  ever  feel  secure  on  the  point, 
and  security  is  likely  to  be  a  fool's  para- 
dise, as  one  really  unscrupulous,  clever, 
evil  boy  may  spread  corruption  wholesale 
without  a  master  suspecting  it. 

As  a  boy  gets  older  and  more  independ- 


152  Moralities 

ent,  it  will  be  less  necessary  to  ask  ques- 
tions ;  but  I  think  that  a  master  may  well 
speak  occasionally  to  his  upper  boys  on 
the  subject,  and  let  them  feel  how  much 
he  has  the  matter  at  heart. 

I  do  not  believe  at  all  in  speaking 
to  boys  collectively,  either  in  sermons 
or  addresses  on  the  point ;  still  less  in  en- 
tering into  details.  Such  conversation 
should  be  individual  and  private,  and 
carefully  adapted  to  the  temperament  of 
the  boy  to  whom  it  is  addressed. 

To  speak  to  boys  collectively  on  such 
subjects  is  like  trying  to  fill  a  number  of 
pitchers  by  splashing  water  over  them 
from  a  pail;  each  should  be  separately 
dipped. 

The  point  to  be  firmly  kept  in  view 
is  this:  that  a  master  has  little  right  to 
maintain  in  this  matter  the  attitude  of  a 
virginal  modesty,  affronted,  scandalised, 
and  injured  by  the  least  violation  of  the 
ideal,  and  avenging  it,  if  such  violation 
occur,  with  furious  contempt  and  loathing 
for  the  accursed  thing;    but  he  should 


Purity  153 

rather  sorrowfully  feel  that  temptation  is 
strong  and  that  boys  are  weak,  yet  that 
they  are  in  their  better  moments  earnestly 
and  pathetically  desirous  to  be  kept  from 
evil,  and  that  no  help  that  he  can  give 
is  ever  thrown  away. 

I  think — I  wish  I  could  say  otherwise 
— that  any  attempt  to  condone  the  evil, 
to  give  a  boy  a  chance  to  recover  his 
character  in  a  case  where  he  has  gone 
wrong,  is  a  mistake.  Boys  are  very  in- 
quisitive; and  a  boy  who  has  fallen,  and 
whose  fall  is  known  to  others,  is  very 
likely  to  revert  to  evil  when  the  impression 
of  discovery  is  obliterated.  But  every 
care  should  be  taken,  every  possible  pre- 
caution, to  avoid  such  a  fall  prejudicing 
a  boy's  future.  Indeed,  it  does  not 
deserve  so  terrible  a  punishment.  And 
it  is  hard  to  resist  a  sense  of  injustice  at 
a  sin  which  often  represents  far  more  of 
a  good-natured  compliance  than  moral 
depravity,  bringing  such  melancholy  con- 
sequences in  its  wake.  If  schoolmasters 
could  do  anything  to  alter  the  strange 


154  Moralities 

code  which  exists  almost  instinctively 
among  boys,  so  merciless  to  sins  against 
honour,  so  heedless  of  sins  against 
morality,  and  to  cultivate  social  indigna- 
tion against  offences  against  purity,  the 
battle  would  be  nearly  won. 

Alarmists  would  have  one  believe  that 
public  schools  are  honeycombed  with 
vice,  and  that  all  boys  must  pass  through 
a  fiery  ordeal.  I  can  only  say  that  I  was 
for  two  years  at  a  very  large  private 
school,  in  days  when  the  tone  was  un- 
deniably worse  than  it  is  now,  and  never 
heard  even  the  faintest  hint  of  moral 
evil;  at  the  public  school  where  I  spent 
seven  years  I  never  came  into  contact 
with  the  smallest  temptation  of  a  direct 
nature  to  evil,  though  I  do  not  deny  that 
I  heard  conversations  of  a  Rabelaisian 
character;  and  this  was  the  experience 
of  many  of  my  own  contemporaries. 
Indeed,  speaking  with  utter  and  entire 
frankness,  I  will  say  that  I  have  good 
reasons  for  believing  that  things  are  far 


Improvement  155 

better  now  at  public  schools  than  they 
were  twenty  years  ago.  Each  man  can 
only  appeal  to  his  own  experience,  but 
my  own  experience  is  that  the  evil  is 
not  very  widespread,  but  tends  to  gather 
in  small  groups.  Of  course,  a  boy  in 
search  of  evil  will  probably  be  able  to 
find  it;  but  there  is  no  reason  why  a 
boy  who  is  pure-minded  and  manly 
should  ever  find  a  serious  difficulty  in 
his  path. 

Fifty  years  ago  it  would  have  been 
said  that  bullying,  the  tyranny  of  the 
strong  over  the  weak,  was  an  evil  in- 
separable from  school  life;  but  bullying 
has  now  practically  disappeared.  There 
is,  of  course,  some  teasing,  and  the 
eccentric  are  ridiculed  if  not  oppressed, 
but  it  is  not  a  danger  which  requires 
special  vigilance. 

At  one  public  school  the  evil  of  which 
I  have  been  speaking  was  practically 
exterminated  under  the  guidance  of  a 
strong   and   sensible   headmaster.     And 


1 56  Moralities 

I  say  confidently  that  I  look  forward  to  a 
time,  not  necessarily  very  far  distant, 
when  the  evil  may  be  so  far  diminished 
as  to  become  simply  abnormal.  That 
is  all  that  can  be  hoped  for,  and  that  I 
dare  to  hope. 


XVI 
DEVOTION 

MY  object  has  been  in  this  little  book 
to  show  that  there  should  be  a 
conscious  consecration  of  self  to  work  in 
schoolmasters.  Not  a  sentimental  conse- 
cration, and  not  a  consecration  to  be 
talked  about,  but  a  serious  and  inner 
devotion  to  a  life  which  holds  the  happi- 
ness of  many  other  lives  in  its  hand.  It 
is  not  a  thing  to  be  brandished  in  the  face 
of  others.  I  have  heard  of  a  schoolmaster 
who  went  up  the  Matterhom  in  the  holi- 
days, of  whom  a  witty  colleague  said  that 
he  supposed  it  was  because  he  was  so  fond 
of  taking  higher  ground.  It  is  a  pity  to  be 
always  waving  motives  about;  it  is  not 
characteristically  English,  and  it  leads  to 
a  suspicion  of  priggishness  which  is  apt 
to  maim  a  man's  influence.  Of  course, 
157 


158  Devotion 

there  have  been  great  and  high-minded 
schoolmasters  who  have  undeniably  been 
prigs.  Dr.  Arnold  was  a  man  of  this 
type,  of  great  nobility  and  earnestness  of 
character ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
his  lack  of  the  humour  which  is  incon- 
sistent with  priggishness,  was  a  hindrance 
and  not  a  help  to  his  work.  Of  course, 
Dr.  Arnold,  by  sheer  force  of  character  and 
by  intense  seriousness,  made  a  revolution 
in  English  schools,  and  perhaps  such  a 
revolution  could  hardly  have  been  effected 
by  anyone  who  was  less  candidly  and 
frankly  high-minded.  The  Life  of  Dr. 
Arnold  is  an  extremely  inspiring  book. 
The  vigour  of  the  man,  his  goodness,  his 
simplicity,  shine  out  on  every  page,  but 
I  think  that  it  is  easier  to  admire  in  a 
book  than  it  would  have  been  in  real  life, 
and  there  was  a  certain  precocity  which  he 
developed  in  the  men  who  came  under  his 
influence  which  was  not  wholly  good.  Sir 
George  Trevelyan  in  a  very  witty  book, 
The  Competition  Wallah,  speaks  of  the 
influence  which   a   young  Civil  Servant 


Priggishness  iS9 

may  find  thrust  into  his  hands,  as  only 
comparable  to  that  arrogated  to  himself 
by  one  of  Dr.  Arnold's  praepostors  in  his 
first  term  at  the  University.  The  frame 
of  mind  which  resolves  definitely  to  exert 
influence  over  other  people  may  have 
beneficial  results,  but  it  is  a  self-righteous 
and  Pharisaical  frame  of  mind ;  and  the 
normal  human  being  is  more  amenable  to 
influence  that  is  less  consciously  exerted 
and  more  simply  displayed. 

I  have  known  several  very  effective 
schoolmasters  who  were  certainly  prigs, 
but  I  think  that  they  would  have  been 
more  effective  still  if  this  leaven  had  not 
permeated  their  excellent  work. 

The  consecration  of  which  I  speak 
should  be  rather  deep  and  secret ;  a  man 
should  aim  at  ruling  and  stimulating 
himself  rather  than  at  ruling  and  stimu- 
lating others.  He  should  accept  the 
inevitable  failures  and  humiliations  of 
school  life  as  lessons  sent  to  himself  to 
show  that  he  cannot  always  be  as  effective 
as  he  would  like  to  be,  to  help  in  cleansing 


i6o  Devotion 

him  from  his  secret  faults.  A  prig  in 
spirit  is  likely  to  put  down  his  failures 
more  to  the  fault  of  other  people  than  to 
his  own  inadequacy. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  temptations  to 
a  master  to  be  priggish  are  very  strong  at 
present.  I  would  rather  believe  that  the 
tendency  is  the  other  way,  and  that  the 
master  is  apt  to  think  of  himself  as  an 
ordinary  professional  man  bent  on  doing 
work,  which  is  often  tiresome  and  not 
always  valuable,  in  a  conscientious  way; 
— and  this  is  not  a  very  exalted  frame 
of  mind. 

A  man  who  had  been  recently  ap- 
pointed to  a  headmastership  once  went 
to  see  an  elderly  veteran  who  presided 
over  a  large  school.  The  veteran  gave 
him  several  hints,  among  which  was  to 
limit  his  school  business  strictly  to  school 
hours,  **and  then  at  six  o'clock,"  he 
said,  "you  are  a  gentleman."  **And 
what  are  you  till  then  ?"  said  the  other 
grimly.  It  is  this  sense  of  trying  to  get 
rid  of  the  consciousness  of  one's  pro- 


Self-Discipline  i6i 

fession  altogether  in  hours  off  duty  that 
I  deprecate.  A  master  of  my  acquaint- 
ance, who  was  keenly  alive  to  the  social 
disabilities  of  his  trade,  was  reduced  to 
saying  to  his  fashionable  friends  who 
asked  him  what  he  had  been  doing,  that 
he  had  been  staying  in  Bedfordshire.  This 
is,  of  course,  an  extreme  and  exaggerated 
instance,  but  it  represents  a  frame  of 
mind  in  which  good  work  can  hardly  be 
done,  and  which  is  not  unknown  among 
schoolmasters. 

The  schoolmaster  should  consider  him- 
self as  vowed  for  a  time  to  a  species  of 
monastic  life.  If  he  is  a  man  of  strong 
preferences  he  will  find  abundance  of  self- 
discipline  in  the  punctual  bells,  the  round 
of  simple  and  often  distasteful  duties,  in 
the  constant  necessity  that  he  will  be 
under  of  laying  down  something  that  he 
desires  to  do  in  order  to  take  up  some- 
thing which  he  does  not  desire  to  do. 
But  he  should  try  to  realise  that  these  are 
not  interruptions  to  life,  but,  for  him,  life 
itself;   and  that  he  must  accept  them  as 


i62  Devotion 

part  of  the  conditions  of  life,  as  a  definite 
training  which  is  sent  to  him  in  this 
world. 

As  an  old  judge  once  said  in  my 
presence  with  great  solemnity:  "The 
judge  who  does  not  repress  the  first 
symptoms  of  irritability  which  inevitably 
occur  during  the  examination  of  a  stupid 
or  unsatisfactory  witness  is  lost.  Irrit- 
ability only  hampers  justice."  So  the 
schoolmaster  is  lost  who  does  not  cheer- 
fully accept  interruption  as  a  necessary 
part  of  his  life. 

Then,  too,  the  schoolmaster  must  re- 
flect upon  the  gravity  of  his  charge.  He 
is  there  to  turn  boys,  if  he  can,  into  good 
citizens;  to  curb,  to  correct,  but  also  to 
encourage  and  to  lift.  And  if  he  cannot 
feel  the  beauty  and  the  solemnity  of  the 
charge,  *'Feed  My  Lambs,"  which  he  re- 
ceives as  certainly  as  the  apostle  of  old, 
he  is  out  of  place  as  a  schoolmaster.  If 
he  looks  upon  himself  as  a  sophist  or  as 
a  gaoler,  his  view  will  be  either  cynical 
or  rigid;    rigidity  is  bad,  but  cynicism 


Cynicism  163 

is  far  worse,  and  yet  it  is  not  uncommon 
to  see  a  man  drifting  into  cynicism  as  he 
goes  on,  teaching  things  in  the  value  of 
which  he  does  not  believe,  looking  upon 
boys  as  necessary  evils,  thinking  only  of 
how  to  get  through  his  work  with  as 
little  friction  and  fatigue  as  possible.  If 
a  man  finds  such  a  mood  growing  upon 
him,  I  can  only  say  that  I  believe  it  to 
be  a  plain  duty  for  him  to  stand  aside 
and  to  yield  his  place  to  one  who  will 
bring  to  the  task  a  little  more  hopefulness 
and  generosity  and  enthusiasm. 

One  thing  is  certain,  that  schoolmaster- 
ing  cannot  be  looked  upon  in  a  frivolous 
spirit.  I  do  not  mean  that  there  should 
be  a  heavy  cloud  of  duty  and  rectitude 
over  every  schoolmaster's  mind,  but  it 
will  not  do  to  talk  of  it  as  a  profession 
like  any  other,  which  a  man  must  prac- 
tise to  live.  Of  course  in  all  other  pro- 
fessions other  people  are  dependent  on 
you  to  a  certain  extent.  The  employer  of 
labour  must  have  the  welfare  of  the 
employed  at  heart;    the  ofhcer  must  be 


164  Devotion 

interested  in  his  men ;  but  the  schoolmas- 
ter's duty  and  raison  d'etre  is  to  make 
something  definite  out  of  the  minds  and 
bodies  and  souls  of  the  children  com- 
mitted to  him.  A  man  who  as  a  school- 
master is  careless  or  idle  or  indififerent 
may  be  quite  certain  that  he  is  doing 
active  harm,  and  that  the  Gospel  warning 
as  to  what  is  the  position  of  the  man  who 
offends  one  of  these  little  ones  is  ad- 
dressed directly  to  him.  It  is  of  no  use 
to  deceive  oneself  in  the  matter;  the 
man  who  is  a  lazy  teacher,  who  is  a  care- 
less tutor,  who  has  a  bad  house,  is  im- 
perilling the  bodies  and  souls  of  the  boys 
whom  he  professes  to  guide  and  guard. 
A  careless  housemaster  may  reflect  that 
by  his  carelessness  corruption  may  flow 
year  after  year  into  many  souls,  which 
under  better  influence  might  have  been 
pure  and  good  and  strong.  No  solemnity 
of  words  is  needed  to  make  such  a  state- 
ment impressive;  it  is  the  hard  literal 
fact.  Even  a  conscientious,  anxious, 
diligent    master    may    have    much    to 


Convictions  165 

reproach  himself  with;  but  for  a  man  to 
pursue  such  a  trade  without  principles, 
without  purpose,  and  without  conviction, 
is  a  great  and  heinous  sin,  and  deserves 
the  punishment  which  such  sins  receive. 
One  of  the  singular  things  about  educa- 
tion is  this,  that  whenever  one  looks  back 
to  any  period  one  sees  that  gross  and 
discreditable  things  were  done  and  per- 
mitted by  schoolmasters,  which  one  can- 
not see  how  decent  or  conscientious  men 
could  allow  to  continue.  Not  to  travel 
far  for  instances,  no  doubt  the  Eton 
masters  of  the  last  century,  the  Fellows 
of  the  college,  were  virtuous  and  even 
godly  men;  but  they  let  continue  under 
their  eyes  a  state  of  things  in  Long 
Chamber  which  was  a  positive  disgrace 
to  civilisation.  ''Now,  please  God,  I  will 
do  something  for  those  poor  boys,"  was 
what  good  Provost  Hodgson  said  as  his 
carriage  drew  up  at  the  lodge  at  Eton, 
under  the  walls  of  Long  Chamber,  when 
he  came  to  take  possession.  Of  course 
the  parent  shares  the  responsibility  with 


1 66  Devotion 

the  schoolmaster  to  a  certain  extent ;  but 
people  are  slow  to  move,  and  parents 
will  allow  their  boys  to  continue  in  a 
house  where  they  know  that  an  evil 
tone  exists,  rather  than  remove  the  boy 
from  the  school,  and  much  rather  than 
repeat  to  the  schoolmaster  what  they 
hear,  for  fear  that  unpopularity  and  per- 
secution should  fall  on  the  boy,  vaguely 
hoping  that  it  will  be  all  right  in  the 
end.  These  are  some  of  the  dark  abysses 
of  life;  but  schoolmasters  may  well  ask 
themselves  what  there  is  in  their  present 
handling  of  affairs  which  will  be  looked 
upon  by  the  next  generation  as  prepos- 
terous or  shameful.  I  think  it  probable 
that  our  present  system  will  not  appear 
conspicuously  barbarous  to  the  educators 
of  fifty  years  hence,  because  the  whole 
matter  is  being  anxiously  and  carefully 
studied  by  many  conscientious  school- 
masters everywhere ;  but  I  have  no  doubt 
at  all  that  there  are  points  to  which  we 
are  blind,  that  will  rouse  the  wonder  and 
wrath  of  good  men  after  us.    And  there- 


Tradition  167 

fore  we  ought  to  labour  to  get  rid  of 
prejudice  and  traditional  feeling  in  the 
matter,  and  to  try  and  see  things  in  a 
wise  and  liberal  spirit.  The  difficulties  are 
great  because  the  boys  with  whom  w^e 
have  to  deal  are  very  tenacious  of  custom, 
very  limited  in  view,  very  blind  to  their 
own  best  interests.  The  work  must,  I 
believe,  be  individual  more  than  com- 
prehensive ;  and  the  best  cure  for  the  evils 
of  school  life  is  that  men  should  flow  into 
the  profession  who  have  a  strong  sense 
of  duty  and  vocation,  a  large  fund  of  affec- 
tion and  pity  and  patience,  strong  com- 
mon sense,  tranquillity,  and  width  of  view. 
The  object  of  this  little  book  will  have 
been  attained  if  it  induces  a  few  men 
to  look  at  their  profession  in  a  different 
light,  to  try  to  modify  their  views  and 
to  clarify  their  ideal.  It  is  not  written 
from  the  point  of  view  of  one  w^ho  has 
succeeded  in  doing  this,  but  from  the 
point  of  view  of  one  who  feels  keenly 
his  own  inadequacy  and  failure,  but  would 
like  to  do  better. 


1 68  Devotion 

If  the  responsibility  is  great,  the  re- 
ward is  great.  A  schoolmaster  at  the  end 
of  his  career  can  look  back  upon  an 
active,  wholesome  life,  and  need  never 
question  the  usefulness  of  what  he  has 
been  doing,  even  though  he  may  lament 
that  it  was  not  better  done.  He  must  not 
look  to  great  monetary  rewards  or  large 
recognition  of  his  work.  He  must  ac- 
quiesce if  the  boys,  to  whom  he  seemed 
in  their  tender  years  so  great  and  effective 
a  man,  come  back  and  find  him  a  tire- 
some, horni  person  with  a  narrow  hori- 
zon and  a  limited  stock  of  ancient  stories. 
But  he  will  have  made  many  very  real 
friends,  and  have  met  with  much  grati- 
tude, which  he  will  be  conscious  of  not 
having  deserved.  He  may  look  back  to 
having  given  his  life  to  a  noble  work, 
and  he  may  be  abundantly  thankful  if  he 
has  made  a  few  feeble  feet  firmer,  caused 
a  few  timorous  natures  to  be  braver  and 
stronger,  helped  a  few  boys  to  resist  or 
conquer  grave  faults,  and  ruled  a  small 
community  with  diligence  and  harmony 


Rewards  169 

and  happiness.  He  may  have  an  abun- 
dant stock  of  bright  memories,  tender 
thoughts,  and  beautiful  experiences;  and 
he  will  be  a  very  hard  and  dull  person  if 
he  is  not  a  little  wiser,  a  little  more 
thrilled  with  the  mysterious  wonder  of 
life,  a  little  more  conscious  of  the  vast  and 
complex  design  of  the  world  in  w^hich  he 
has  been  permitted  to  play  a  real  part. 


ArtKur  CHristopKer  Benson 


THE  SCHOOLMASTER 

A   COMMENTARY  UPON    THE  AIMS  AND 

METHODS  OF  AN  ASSISTANT-MASTER 

IN  A  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

Crown  6vo,    $1.25  net 

The  book  is  not  a  scientific  treatise  on  education,  but  it 
is  filled  with  practical  suggestions  that  come  out  of  the  author's 
long  experience  as  a  teacher  in  an  English  public  school. 
What  he  says  of  teaching  is  designed  to  indicate  the  spirit  in 
which  he  believes  a  man  should  enter  upon  the  pedagogical 
vocation,  the  attitude  he  should  take  towards  his  pupils,  and 
the  group  of  qualities  which  he  should  sedulously  cultivate. 
Among  the  assets  of  a  successful  pedagogue,  Mr.  Benson 
thinks  sympathy  with  boys,  tact,  dignity,  firmness,  good- 
natured  irony  are  of  prime  importance. 


AT  LARGE 

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In  the  essay  Mr.  Benson  is  at  his  best  and  here  he  is  in 
his  best  vein.  An  atmosphere  of  rest  and  tranquil  thought- 
fulness  envelopes  the  reader,  as  he  peruses  this  book  so  full  of 
sage  reflection,  humor,  shrewd  observation,  and  serviceable 
thought ;  so  fluent,  accurate,  and  beautiful  in  style  ;  so  pleas- 
ingly varied  in  cadence.  Mr.  Benson's  books  have  been  well 
called  "ministering  books,"  and  such  they  are  in  the  sense 
that  they  present  to  the  reader  a  great  number  of  ideas,  wise 
thoughts,  and  suggestions  which  can  be  successfully  put  into 
practice  in  the  daily  round  and  common  task  of  every  man  s 
life.  Indeed  it  is  the  combination  of  charm  of  manner  and 
humble  serviceableness  that  have  drawn  about  Mr.  Benson  his 
large  circle  of  friendly  and  appreciative  readers. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORli  LONDON 


Arthur   Christopher   Benson 

J2th  I)jipression 

The  Upton  Letters 

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and  fragrant.      To  review  the  book  adequately  is  impossible. 
.     .     .     It  is  in  truth  a  precious  thing." —  Week's  Survey. 

nth  Impression 

From  a  College  Window 

Croivn  8vo.  $i.2j  net 
"  Mr.  Benson  has  written  nothing  equal  to  this  mellow  and 
full-flavored  book.  From  cover  to  cover  it  is  packed  with 
personality  ;  from  phase  to  phase  it  reveals  a  thoroughly 
sincere  and  unaffected  effort  of  self-expression  ;  full-orbed  and 
four-square,  it  is  a  piece  of  true  and  simple  literature." 

London  Chronicle. 

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The  Dial. 

2nd  Impression 

The  Altar  Fire 

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"  Once  more  Mr.  Benson  has  put  forth  one  of  his  appealing 
and  eloquent  studies  in  human  motive  ;  and  once  more,   he 
has  succeeded,  with  unfailing  certainty  of  touch,  in  getting 
out  of  his  study  a  remarkable  and  impressive  effect." 

London  Chronicle, 

The  Above  Four  Volumes  in  a  box,  $5.00  net 

Special  Library  Edition  of  "  The  Upton  Letters,"  "  Beside 
Still  Waters,"  "  From  a  College  Window,"  Limited  to  500 
sets. 

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bound.      Gilt  tops^  deckle  edges.      Sold  in  sets  only.     $7.50  net, 

Q.   P.   Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


Shelburne  Essays 

By  Paul  Elmer  More 

5  vols.     Crown  octavo. 
Sold  separately.     Net,  $1.25.     (By  mail,  $1.35) 

Contents 

First  Series  :  A  Hermit's  Notes  on  Thoreau — The  Soli- 
tude of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  —  The  Origins  of  Haw- 
thorne and  Poe — The  Influence  of  Emerson — The  Spirit 
of  Carlyle  —  The  Science  of  English  Verse  —  Arthur 
Symons  :  The  Two  Illusions — The  Epic  of  Ireland — 
Two  Poets  of  the  Irish  Movement — Tolstoy  ;  or,  The 
Ancient  Feud  between  Philosophy  and  Art  —  The  Re- 
ligious Ground  of  Humanitarianism. 

Second  Series  :  Elizabethan  Sonnets — Shakespeare's  Son- 
nets— Lafcadio  Hearn — The  First  Complete  Edition  of 
Hazlitt  —  Charles  Lamb  — Kipling  and  FitzGerald  — 
George  Crabbe  —  The  Novels  of  George  Meredith  — 
Hawthorne:  Looking  before  and  after  —  Delphi  and 
Greek  Literature — Nemesis  :  or,  The  Divine  Envy. 

Third  Series  :  The  Correspondence  of  William  Cowper — 
Whittier  the  Poet — The  Centenary  of  Sainte-Beuve — 
The  Scotch  Novels  and  Scotch  History — Swinburne — 
Christina  Rossetti — Why  is  Browning  Popular? — A  Note 
on  Byron's  "Don  Juan" — Laurence  Sterne — J.  Henry 
Shorthouse — The  Quest. 

Fourth  Series  :  The  Vicar  of  Morwenstow — Fanny  Bur- 
ney— A  Note  on  "  Daddy  "  Crisp — George  Herbert — John 
Keats — Benjamin  Franklin — Charles  Lamb  Again — Walt 
Whitman— William  Blake— The  Theme  of  Paradise  Lost 

^     — The  Letters  of  Horace  Walpole. 

Fifth  Series  :  The  Greek  Anthology  —  The  Praise  of 
Dickens — George  Gissing — Mrs.  Gaskell — Philip  Freneau 
— Thoreau's  Journal — The  Centenary  of  Longfellow — 
Donald  G.  Mitchell— James  Thomson  (  "  B.  V.")-Ches. 
terfield — Sir  Henry  Wotton. 


A  Few  Press  Criticisms  on 
Shelburne  Essays 

**  It  Is  a  pleasure  to  hail  in  Mr.  More  a  genuine  critic,  for 
genuine  critics  in  Amejrica  in  these  days  are  uncommonly 
scarce.  ,  ,  .  We  recommend,  as  a  sample  of  his  breadth, 
style,  acumen,  and  power  the  essay  on  Tolstoy  in  the  present 
volume.  That  represents  criticism  that  has  not  merely 
a  metropolitan  but  a  world  note.  .  .  ,  One  is  thoroughly 
grateful  to  Mr.  More  for  the  high  quality  of  his  thought,  his 
serious  purpose,  and  his  excellent  style." — Harvard  Gradu^ 
ates*  Magazine. 

"We  do  not  know  of  any  one  now  writing  who  gives 
evidence  of  a  better  critical  equipment  than  Mr.  More.  It 
is  rare  nowadays  to  find  a  writer  so  thoroughly  familiar  with 
both  ancient  and  modern  thought.  It  is  this  width  of  view, 
this  intimate  acquaintance  with  so  much  of  the  best  that  has 
been  thought  and  said  in  the  world,  irrespective  of  local 
prejudice,  that  constitute  Mr.  More*s  strength  as  a  critic. 
He  has  been  able  to  form  for  himself  a  sound  literary  canon 
and  a  sane  philosophy  of  life  which  constitute  to  our  mind 
his  peculiar  merit  as  a  critic." — Independent. 

•*  He  is  familiar  with  classical.  Oriental,  and  English 
literature;  he  uses  a  temperate,  lucid,  weighty,  and  not 
ungraceful  style ;  he  is  aware  of  his  best  predecessors,  and  is 
apparently  on  the  way  to  a  set  of  philosophic  principles 
which  should  lead  him  to  a  high  and  perhaps  influential 
place  in  criticism.  .  .  .  We  believe  that  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  a  critic  who  must  be  counted  among  the  first  who 
take  literature  and  life  for  their  theme." — London  Speaker, 


G.   P.   Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  London 


■  '^^^^^Pffivmw^' 


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